The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has teamed up with young photographer and music video director, Christian Tierney to launch an exciting new competition for secondary schools today themed The Story of Your Stuff.
Students are invited to choose an everyday object such as a pen, mobile phone or a water bottle and use a visual medium to illustrate its lifecycle, where it came from, how you use it and more importantly, where it’s going to end up!
The competition is open to secondary school students up to and including 18 years. The prize is: €500 for the winning entry and €500 plus a video workshop with Christian Tierney for the school. All information about the competition can be found on www.thestoryofyourstuff.ie/. Here students can view a “Story of your stuff” video created by Christian Tierney and top tips from him on how to get started.
h5>In launching the competition the EPA’s Helen Bruen said
“We want students to unleash their creativity to tell us the story of their stuff. Perhaps your pencil started its story as a tree in another continent … maybe your plastic water bottle was created from oil originating as far away as the Middle East… or your phone contains metal originating from the likes of Asia, South America and Africa. By becoming more aware of the story of their stuff, students begin to understand why sustainable consumption behaviours, including recycling and using recyclable materials on a daily basis are so important”.
“Visual mediums such as Snapchat and Instagram are the language of today’s students, so what better way to have fun with this project than for students to use the tools they know best.”
The EPA’s web resource http://www.epa.ie/irelandsenvironment/ provides the best source of information for students to research their entry. The website also includes a section for teachers with a lesson plan outlining the educational as well as fun elements of this campaign.
“I really had fun making my Story of your Stuff video – I loved that this was a real challenge for me, being quite different to what I normally film!” said Christian Tierney.
“This competition is a great way to get the next generation of adults and potential leaders thinking about the importance of protecting our environment and hopefully acting upon it. Of course we can only start small, that’s why The Story of Your Stuff makes sense. If everybody embraced responsibility for their own stuff then collectively we can make a bigger and more positive impact on our world.”
Entering the competition couldn’t be easier. Simply fill out the short application form via www.thestoryofyourstuff.ie, upload your entry and click send before the 30th March 2017.
Students are advised to keep their videos short, ideally 60 seconds and not more than 90 seconds long. Entries will be judged by Christian Tierney and representatives of the EPA and Earth Horizon Productions, producers of RTÉ’s Eco Eye series.