2025 Middle School Winners

Chloe Robbin, Olivia Whee, and Charlotte Naughton are in the 6th grade at Bedford Middle School in Westport, Connecticut. They found out about the World of 8 Billion video contest from their workshop teacher who assigned it in class. Charlotte shared that they chose to submit a video because it “was fun, interesting, and we wanted to help with some of the world’s biggest problems.” They chose the topic of rainforest ecosystems because they love animals and knew that deforestation was destroying a lot of their homes in the rainforest. Olivia shared that they were aware of population growth and some of its impacts, but they were surprised by how much deforestation was happening in some places in the world.

The idea for their video came from Chloe’s grandparents who recently came back from Thailand with a notebook that had paper made from elephant feces. This inspired them to research how the paper is created. They found the process fascinating and wanted to share this sustainable solution with a larger audience. Though they have created videos for fun before, this was the first time they created a video for a contest. The team did a lot of research and had to decide what was the best information to include in the one-minute video—which they found to be challenging. Editing their video was also hard but fun and they used Revideo, a program on their Chromebooks, to help them. Charlotte, Chloe, and Olivia shared that future participants should be creative, have fun making their video, and try to have a memorable ending.

Charlotte is very interested in the arts. She plays the piano, tuba, sings, writes, and participates in musical theater. She recently played Alice in Alice in Wonderland and is inspired by her mom, a Broadway actress, and would like to pursue that as a career path. Chloe was also in Alice in Wonderland as the Queen of Hearts, and likes to write in her free time. She is inspired by her mom who is a talented writer. In the future Chloe would like to be a fashion designer and create a clothing line for people her age. Olivia plays the violin and the piano, and she also enjoys playing squash and dancing. She loves to read and write and wants to be an author. She is inspired by her dad who encourages her to do things that she might not do on her own. Charlotte, Chloe, and Olivia all love to create videos and plan on continuing to make films in the future. They are currently working on their next class project which has them creating a 10-minute movie with an original script.