2010 Writing and Video Competition for Massachusetts HS Students
Submitted by Mary Essary
2010-04-01 12:08:41
AYER, MA, March 22, 2010 — Climate Change, Green Jobs, Clean Technology, Sustainable Energy — all topics in our headlines, but where can we learn about them in our school given existing curriculum constraints?
IMAGINING TOMORROW: ALTERNATE ENERGY FUTURES™ is a video and writing competition for high-school students in Massachusetts that offers teachers and students an opportunity to explore these topics within current curriculum.
Now in its fourth year, the competition challenges students to submit a piece of writing or a video on any aspect of these important issues. Video categories include public service announcements, fiction or documentaries, with time-ranges of micro-docs (under two minutes) to feature-length (twenty to thirty minutes). There are two writing categories: Fiction (near-future fiction stories) and Non-Fiction, such as journalism articles or scientific essays.
The deadline for entries is April 30, 2010, with finalists announced by mid-May. The top award in each category will be $250; second through fifth-place entries will also receive cash awards. All finalists will receive acknowledgments, with the work published on-line as well as on other venues. Any teacher or student is encouraged to submit videos created as part of a classroom project, from economics to video production, or students can create new videos for the competition. Guidelines for submission are at:
<a href="http://www.itomorrow.theforesightproject.org">http://www.itomorrow.theforesightproject.org</a>
Program founder and director Mary Essary explains, "From the Iliad to Uncle Tom’s Cabin to Planet of the Apes, the arts have always held the power to express the human spirit and to create understanding of what cannot be directly experienced. That is the core belief underlying this program — the opportunities for students, not just to learn for themselves in a meaningful and personal way, but also to create works that help others understand these subjects."
<h3>About The Foresight Project</h3>
The Foresight Project was founded in 2007. Its mission is to connect students, particularly high-school students, with the potential long-term ramifications of decisions that we make today and how they might affect the world they will live in tomorrow. It currently runs two programs: the IMAGINING TOMORROW: ALTERNATE ENERGY FUTURES™ competition, and Massachusetts CleanTech Awards, given in conjunction with the Massachusetts State Science and Engineering Fairs to the best student projects on climate science or clean technology.