Local students do well in "World of 7 Billion" video contest

Aurelio Santiago and Michael Smith from Cooper School in Milwaukee are celebrating some lofty achievements.

The two were chosen as runners up for the "World of 7 Billion" video contest aimed at engaging children in environmental issues.

Population Education, a program of Population Connection, is the only national program with a strong emphasis on curriculum and professional development for K-12 educators that focuses on human population issues.

Since 1975, the program has developed age-appropriate curricula to complement students’ science and social science instruction about human population trends and their impacts on natural resources, environmental quality and human well-being.

Students were asked to tackle one of a variety of topics including Climate Change, Ocean Health and rapid Urbanization.

Aurelio and Michael were runners up for the middle school competition with their video entitled: "Urban Sprawl is a Big Problem" where they push the idea of building up instead of out in order to preserve the tree population.

Pramana Saldin, Nick Bucciarelli, Riju Dey and Adit Gupta of Shorewood Intermediate School received first place in the middle school competition involving climate change with a piece entitled "We Only Have One Planet."

To see the videos click here