Building Real-World Skills with the World of 8 Billion Student Competition

December 2, 2025

When students participate in the World of 8 Billion contest, they build invaluable real-world skills. Teachers have shared that the contest strengthened their students’ research, collaboration, communication, responsibility, and time management skills. Below, we explore how creating videos can help build these important 21st century skills.

Building Students’ Research Skills

Research is the foundation for creating a great one-minute video. As students research their chosen global topic, they learn how to distinguish between primary and secondary sources. While analyzing dense texts, they identify key evidence for their video and are encouraged to take organized and effective notes along the way. Our Project Organizer provides space to record key facts and stats for their video and a place to keep track of their citations (which is a skill all on its own!).

Collaboration Skills for Students

The World of 8 Billion project involves many moving pieces, and it can be helpful to divide responsibilities among group members. When working in groups, students gain effective communication and decision-making skills. Everyone can choose a leadership role that highlights their interests or strengths: a student who enjoys public speaking may want to be the narrator for the video, while another team member may prefer to be behind the scenes as the filmer. Groups can outline roles and responsibilities in the Project Organizer to ensure that everyone is on the same page.

Throughout the project, challenges may arise, and team members will practice solving problems together. A successful team will allow each team member to express their opinions and support one another when help is needed.

Communication Skills in the Classroom

Students improve their writing and speaking skills by crafting clear and concise arguments in their video scripts. They may also integrate persuasive writing to explain their sustainable solution.

When it’s time to film, creators often practice the rehearse, record, review, and reflect method. Recording themselves allows students to re-watch their scenes, note what improvements they need to make, and make those adjustments in the next take. Students can practice as many times as they would like and reflect on their learning, building metacognition skills throughout the process. This provides a great opportunity for peer feedback and enhances teamwork.

Responsibility and Time Management Skills

Participating in a long-term project like the student video contest requires time management skills and accountability. Students develop short- and long-term planning goals by meeting smaller deadlines in the research and production sections, and by working toward the overall goal of finishing the video by the submission date.

The contest is designed to be a student-led project and gives these young creators autonomy to decide what to include in their videos. With the resources provided to guide them, they can take ownership of the process and their learning instead of waiting for their teacher’s directions.

Video Contest Builds Real-World Skills for Learners

Research, collaboration, communication, responsibility, and time management skills are skills students work on as they create their videos for the World of 8 Billion contest. Check out our blogs on contest teaching resources and ways the contest helps prepare students for future opportunities.