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NASA Announces Winners of Student REELScience 2014 Communications Video Contest

NASA has selected the winners of NASA’s 2014 educational “REEL Science Communications” video contest. The three winning videos were created by students in Huntington, New York, Santa Cruz, California, and Placerville, California. There were also six videos chosen as runners-up.

“Once again, NASA received some impressive, creative videos from high school students around the country,” said Claire Parkinson, project scientist for the Aqua mission. “These videos reflect a technical expertise in videography combined with an interest in science that ranges from the super serious to the playful. We are very pleased to have NASA Earth science imagery used by these talented and motivated teenagers, all of whom have the potential to become future scientists.”

In the fall of 2013, NASA Earth science missions announced the second annual video contest for high school students aged 13 to 18 to produce a video that communicates NASA Earth science to engage younger students. The challenge was for high school students to produce a two-minute video for a middle school audience that communicates one of the following science concepts: water within the Earth system, how ice changes impact climate, and the effects of wildfires on air quality. These three categories were sponsored respectively by NASA’s Aqua, ICESat, and Terra missions. Student producers had to use NASA resources such as audio clips, animations, visualizations or satellite images to create their video by March 31, 2014. A total of 22 entries were received.

NASA producers, communications experts and scientists judged the videos for several factors that included: scientific accuracy, creativity, the use of NASA data, and video quality.

The three winning videos are: “Water of the Water Planet: Glaciers,” produced by Lena Korkeila of El Dorado High School in Placerville, California; “Melting Ice Caps,” by Anna Olson of Pacific Collegiate School in Santa Cruz, California; and “Forest Fire Effects on Air Quality,” by Heather Forster, Sofia Bialkowski, and Suzie Petryk, of Huntington High School in Huntington, New York.

The six runners-up videos are: “How Ice Impacts Climate and Climate Impacts Ice,” by Joseph Saginaw, Justin Edgar-McNerney, and Charles Beers of Huntington High School in Huntington, New York; “How Ice Impacts Climate and How Climate Impacts Ice,” Adam Stadler of Homestead High School in Mequon, Wisconsin; “Water,” by Vincent Prochoroff and Antek Prochoroff of Shaker Heights High School in Shaker Heights, Ohio; “Pollution from Wildfires,” by Norris King and Jesse Lueb of Lakewood Christian Schools in Long Beach, California; “Hurricanes,” by Shlomo Kugler and Ahron Tzvi Verschleisser of Leo Bernstein Jewish Academy of Fine Arts in Silver Spring, Maryland; and “Wildfires and Terra,” by Anna Olson of Pacific Collegiate School in Santa Cruz, California.

The winners now have an opportunity to work with NASA scientists and communication experts in July 2014 and to produce an Earth Science feature video.

“Even though every submission cannot win, it was evident that each student worked very hard to research what NASA data can help answer the REEL Science questions. Contests like this really show just how important NASA research is in the eyes of our future scientists,” said Brian A. Campbell, education lead for NASA’s ICESat-2 mission.

Videos from winners and runners-up were posted on NASA’s Aura mission and REEL Science websites on May 5.

Winning videos can be seen on the REEL Science page:

http://reelscience.gsfc.nasa.gov/

For latest news about the REEL Science contest, visit:

http://www.facebook.com/NASAReelScience

For more information about the NASA missions that help organize this contest, visit:

http://aqua.nasa.gov/ or www.nasa.gov/aqua
https://www.nasa.gov/terra
http://icesat.gsfc.nasa.gov/
 

Rob Gutro
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
301-286-4044
robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov