For Gen Z and Gen Alpha growing up in the age of social media, there’s a pressure to make content out of everything, as if your experiences don’t matter unless you can portray them as flickering lights on a phone screen. However, the youths also have an advantage: The technology to create and share sophisticated audiovisual productions is more accessible than ever before. When it’s for a good cause, such as supporting the water district, technical know-how connects youth to their community.
Aziz Akbari, Alameda County Water District board president, remembers participating in the WaterClips contest when he was a student. Back then it was a poster contest, but now the contest is for video. Every year, the production quality of the sound mixing, transitions, cinematography and creative scripting from the junior high and high school participants gets better and better.
For the last two years, I’ve been a judge, so I get to see all the finalist videos. Every single one has some creative element that surprises me or makes me laugh. This year, students created videos around the theme “how water from the Alameda County Water District influences, inspires or supports physical health and wellness.” There were shots of food prep, hand washing, and somehow lots of basketball.
Stephanie Uchida
Stephanie Uchida
Among the junior high entries, the first-place winner was Carter Li, and the high school first-place winner was Rukmini Anantha. The water district also gave awards to second and third-place teams, plus a crowd of honorable mentions.
At the April 30 award ceremony, attendees could feel the energy of all the teamwork and creativity the contestants put into their work. They got to learn a bit about the water district at the same time.
