2015 Winners

Katherine Selley and her partner Catherine Knox are juniors at Broadneck High School in Annapolis, MD. Both are part of the Science National Honor Society at Broadneck, which requires members to participate in a science related project every semester; its how they learned about the contest. Last year in their AP Environmental Science, population growth and its impacts were covered so they both had prior knowledge of current strains on the world’s biodiversity. Katherine and Catherine agreed that the sixth mass extinction is a pressing matter, noting that many people don’t know about it or that it’s preventable.

Neither of the pair had much experience with filmmaking but knew they wanted to utilize experiences from their own personal travels and travels of family members. Catherine shared, “Katherine and I have both been to many places all over the world, so we had photos and video clips that we wanted to use to show the global effects of the issue.” And while they found the editing process a bit cumbersome and finding a perfect script length difficult, Catherine joked that the clip where she stuck her hand into freezing wet sand was “a bit of an inconvenience.”

Katherine Selley, a competitive sailor, plans to use her prize money towards a sailing clinic in Chicago. She’s the vice president of the National Honor Society and secretary of the Science National Honor Society. Catherine Knox plans to save her money, potentially, for a semester abroad in college. She’s on the school dance team and is the treasurer of the National Honor Society. As for super powers, Katherine S. would like to walk on water because it would be convenient while she sails while Catherine K. would prefer the ability to fly so she would never be late and could enjoy the view from above the trees.