2026 Middle School Winners

Karis Tseng and Anika Chandak are both 8th graders at Juan Cabrillo Middle School in Santa Clara, California. They learned about the contest through their science teacher, Mrs. Scilingo, who encouraged them to look into population growth and submit a video. Karis and Anika began their research by studying a world map of energy poverty and found that sub-Saharan Africa and India experienced the highest levels of energy poverty. They found that while most of the world has access to energy, 1.18 billion people still experience energy poverty. Knowing these areas contain deserts and curious about innovative and renewable solutions, they discovered that sand batteries were a new and growing energy source. Karis and Anika think sand batteries could be a potential renewable energy source used globally!

To create a captivating video, Karis and Anika drew their own images and got inspiration from images on Procreate. They then uploaded all the images onto Canva and used Canva to record the voiceovers and edit their video. Both discussed that the most challenging part of the video-making process was syncing the voice recording with the visuals, but getting more comfortable with Canva made it go more smoothly. Their favorite part of the process was drawing the images – Anika created the first set, and Karis the second half. Both have created videos for class assignments before, but it was their first time creating and including animations in their videos!

Anika and Karis hope to continue learning about sustainable and renewable energy sources, such as sand batteries. Outside of school, both participate in science competitions, and Anika’s team won an award! Karis does gymnastics and Anika enjoys swimming. They both love to read as well.