2012-2013 Winners

Olivia Wermers is a sophomore at First Colonial High School in Virginia Beach, VA. She’s enrolled in an AP Human Geography class where creating a video for the World of 7 Billion contest and submitting it was a course requirement. But although creating the video was assigned, she was able to choose the topic on her own and went with wildlife habitat because she was seeing all of the destruction happening as the result of bad decisions. Regarding her awareness of population, Olivia explains that “we had just done a unit on population but I learned a lot more when I did research and made the video.”

Through her video PSA, Olivia wanted to portray that “if the population keeps growing, we’re going to run out of things, like habitat, faster.” She thought a simple message would have the broadest reach. Coming up with the idea for the video and laying it out sensibly was the most challenging part of the process for Olivia. She’d recently learned to use Photoshop in a photography class, so was prepared from a technical side.

At school, Olivia is involved in community service through her membership in the Noble Teens and also helps raise money for children with cleft palates with the Operation Smile Club. She spends a lot of her free time dancing, something she started at the age of two, both on her own and on a competition team. As for post high school, Olivia’s interests are broad – she may want to go into graphic design but is also interested in psychology.