Bay Area High School Students Awarded for Water-Wise Gardening Production
Rosemary Ceja
Nine winners were recognized for their original videos about Water Wise Gardens at the Soquel Creek Water District Board Meeting on May 21, 2019. There will be other recognition ceremonies for the winning videos in late June in Scotts Valley and Watsonville.
The fifth annual student-made video contest this year was organized by the Water Conservation Coalition of Santa Cruz County (WCC), and the Monterey County Water Awareness Committee (WAC). Over 90 videos were submitted from the following high schools in the Monterey Bay area: Aptos, Pajaro Valley, Scotts Valley and Watsonville High School!
Local high school video production classes offered through the Santa Cruz County Career and Technical Training Program (formerly Regional Occupation Program (ROP)) and other video production classes for High School and College students in Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties were invited to submit short public service announcement (PSA) videos in English or Spanish.
Malia Kesslery
Contest organizers were enthusiastic about the results. “These students did a great job of learning the facts about water wise gardening and all the ways you can conserve and protect water. We really enjoyed the creative energy that went into them,” said Vai Campbell, of Soquel Creek Water. “We commend each student that participated and the teachers who supported the contest.”
The winning videos can be viewed at https://watersavingtips.org/resources/videocontest/ and will air this summer on KION channel 5/46, the Spanish TV station Telemundo 23, KSBW, Santa Cruz Community Television and Watsonville’s public access channel 70. Videos will also be shown before movies at the Cinema 9 in Santa Cruz.
The videos were chosen for their level of visual, sound and editing quality and most importantly, for their messages to inspire water-wise gardening. Local winners are listed.
Top Winning Videos Receive $500 for their production
Drought-Tolerant Plants by Malia Kesslery from Aptos High
Winning Videos Receive $350 per video team
Water Conservation by Rosemary Ceja from Watsonville High School
Las Nativas Son Amigas by Azucena Lopez, Brianna Lopez and Xochitl Martinez from Pajaro Valley High School
Types of Gardening by Jessica Zavala, Jasmin Tapia, Jasmine Jimenez and Jasmine Limon from Watsonville High School
Honorable Mentions
Capitan Aqua by Gustavo Nunez and Angel Valdez from Watsonville High School
Water Conservation WHS Video Academy by Juan Garcia Vega from Watsonville High School
Water Wise Gardening 2019 by Maria Vasquez-Gonzalez from Watsonville High School
The WCC and the WAC also honored the following teachers and schools who encouraged and assisted with participation in the contest.
This year’s teacher, who taught the top-winning students, is Joel Domhoff, and received $300. The school from Monterey County who turned in the most videos was awarded $300 towards their video production program, and both Gonzales High and Scotts Valley High earned that distinction.
Jacob Jun taught the Gonzales students and SVHS’s students came from the classes of Mark Andrews and Joel Domhoff.
The Water Awareness Committee, and The Water Conservation Coalition commend all student participants.
We especially thank the teachers who supported the video contest by instructing the students their video creation skills, and for giving class credit to students who completed videos for the contest.
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For more info: www.watersavingtips.org and www.waterawareness.org