2021 High School Winners

Anna Paradise is a senior at Harborfield High School. She lives in Centerport, Long Island, NY. In the fall, she will be attending Colgate University and majoring in English and Art. Anna found out about the contest in her Advanced Science Research class where her teacher, Mr. Pinto, recommended the World of 7 Billion contest. Of the three topics, she chose to address Promoting Environmental Justice due to her belief that there are “many examples of indigenous people being used as a scapegoat for environmental issues,” she said. She explained in further detail that “in Nova Scotia, they have lobster fishing, and commercial fishermen say it’s bad for the lobster catch but there are no environmental effects. It’s important to have media coverage and talk about these things.” Her passion for environmental justice and spreading awareness on this issue inspired her to submit a video.

As an aspiring English and Art major, Anna creates animated videos often for her class projects. During the video editing process, she found it challenging to adhere to the one-minute time limit and found that animating takes a long time. Anna is also an artist and has won several awards for her art. She advises future contests participants to “get a clean, polished script from the beginning”. For next year’s contest, Anna recommends “overpopulation in specific areas and how that affects the resources there” as a potential topic.

In her free time, Anna plays volleyball and her team is currently in the playoffs. Anna’s older sister is her inspiration because of the commonalities that they share. They were both in the same science class and she loves following in her sister’s footsteps conducting research and finding solutions to global issues. It has been a challenge for Anna to attend school virtually due to the policy changes in her school and because she has been unable to play volleyball. “There’s a missing link when you’re virtual”, she shares. Despite the challenges, Anna believes her and her classmates have been able to adapt and come up with solutions to the current situation.