2026 High School Winners

Denise Collins, Caroline Holt, and Mia Escalante are 12th graders at The Bush School in Seattle, Washington. They learned about the World of 8 Billion video contest in their environmental science class and chose to explore wetlands, inspired by recent field trips, and aimed to deepen their understanding of these ecosystems and their cultural significance. Their research emphasized the importance of these ecosystems to communities, economies, and the environment and highlighted how colonization has fostered negative perceptions of wetlands. They also uncovered their role as carbon sinks, their biodiversity, and their significance to the salmon population in Seattle. They proposed community land trusts as a sustainable way to ensure equitable access and benefits to wetlands as the population grows.

Denise has created many films outside this competition, so she took on the role of director. Caroline has a strong interest in art, so she did the drawings, and Mia took charge of the content and overall planning. They shared that it was fun to brainstorm ideas, research, and create the video together. The most challenging part of the contest was consolidating the original content into the one-minute time frame. Getting the lighting and voice-overs right also took a lot of time. They used their phones to record their film and then edited it in CapCut, which is user-friendly on both laptops and phones. Caroline’s advice to future contest participants is that “one minute is a shorter time than you would think – choose important information but keep it short and sweet.”  Denise shared that “some things you don’t need to say out loud, but you can show the information using images,” which will help you include more content in the short time limit.

Mia, Caroline, and Denise are very involved in extracurricular activities. Mia leads the school’s Latino Student Union, where she hosts workshops and events during Hispanic Heritage Month. She also plays basketball and volleyball, and is working on painting a mural with Caroline for her Senior Project. She is planning to study pre-law, and she hopes “to use this path to study and work in fields that support marginalized communities and advocate for the health of our planet in support of environmental justice.” Caroline is an accomplished athlete, competing in cross country and climbing, where she has won divisionals in boulder and rope climbing. She is planning to major in environmental science and biology, hoping to become a wildlife biologist or vet someday. Denise does a lot of filmmaking and acting outside of school and works and volunteers at film camps. She also handles all social media and posts for her mom’s restaurant and runs track and plays soccer. She is majoring in filmmaking and hopes to create films that highlight underrepresented communities in the future.