2020 High School Winners

Sophia Greenberg is an 11^th grader at Coppell High School in Coppell, Texas. She learned of the video contest after receiving the assignment as a part of the population unit in her IB program’s Environmental Science class. Of the three contest topics, she chose to submit a video in the Ensuring Economic Opportunities category after seeing the Microfinance subcategory, a subject she is familiar with from research projects she has conducted in the past.

Although this was Sophia’s first time using animation, she tapped her art skills in creating the images seen in her video. She reflected on her strategy for formulating her video’s message and said, “I wanted to get the message across quickly and wanted the viewer to be interested throughout the video.” This was Sophia’s first award for a project and she identifies needing to be concise and incorporating clear messaging as the most challenging part of the process. Sophia recommends future contest participants start with a broad topic, and then narrow the main idea of the video down as they continue to conduct research. In future video contests, she would love to see a topic that incorporates examples of innovative, real-world projects that scientists are working on to stop the effects of climate change on our planet.

Sophia enjoys serving as liaison of the Coppell High School Arts Council. She is also a Girl Scout, enjoys the outdoors, and has recently gotten into gardening. She has a vegetable plot at home with lots of tomatoes and is currently trying to determine how to grow a full tomato from seed-to-harvest without a bird or squirrel getting to it first!