Energy & Our Environment ecoClips Video Challenge
Take a look at the winning videos in our 2012 ecoClips Video Challenge!
ecoClips 2012 grand prize winning video
Alexandria Neuman and Hannah Billesberger
Estevan Comprehensive School, Estevan
ecoClips 2012 runner-up video
Local Warming
Mason Fehr and Richard Zhu
Walter Murray Collegiate, Saskatoon
Hey Grade 10, 11, and 12 students!
Thinking about our environment?
Economics and ecology?
Wondering how can society balance the cost, need and environmental impacts of energy use?
Grab a video-cam and capture your ideas. SaskPower Shand Greenhouse invites you to participate in our ecoClips Video Challenge.
Submit your three minute enviro video and you could win a laptop computer.
What are you waiting for? Direct your future and create some noise.
- Eligibility: Contest is open to students from Saskatchewan in
Grades 10 – 12. - How to Enter: Submit entry form, video and all applicable release forms to SaskPower Shand Greenhouse. Entries may be received any time after January 1, 2013 but postmarked no later than April 26, 2013. Videos must be at least 2.0 minutes but no longer than 3.0 minutes in length (excluding titles and credits) and is preferred in .mov format. Entrant (entrant group) must be the sole author and copyright owner of entry. Use of images and works in the public domain may be incorporated into entries; however materials which infringe on the rights of any third party (e.g. logos on t-shirts or props and copyrighted music) may not be used.
SaskPower Shand Greenhouse is in no way responsible for late, lost, delayed, damaged, misdirected or incomplete entries.
By entering the contest, students agree that the video will become the property of SaskPower Shand Greenhouse.
Entering the contest constitutes permission to use participants’ names, likenesses, biographical information and submission for promotional purposes, without compensation. - Prizes: One laptop computer will be awarded to each individual of the winning entry. An Apple iPod™ will be awarded to second place winner(s).
Prizes will be awarded to winning entrant(s) by the end of the school year. No alternative prize, cash equivalent, or other substitution is permitted except by SaskPower Shand Greenhouse in the event of prize unavailability. SaskPower Shand Greenhouse reserves the right to not award a prize if, in its sole judgement, none of the entries is worthy. Accepting prize constitutes permission to use winners’ names, likenesses and biographical information for promotional purposes, for no additional compensation and releases SaskPower Shand Greenhouses from any and all liability, costs, claims, damages, actions and causes of action arising as a result of any loss, damage, personal injury or death suffered by the winner(s) and/or any third party as a result of his/her/their use of prize and for any reason whatsoever. - Winners: Winners will be determined by highest overall grading score from all eligible entries received. A panel of judges will grade all eligible entries based on four criteria: technical accuracy of topic, demonstrated degree of understanding, artistic merit of presentation, technical merit of video production. All grading decisions are final. SaskPower Shand Greenhouse reserves the right to disqualify an entry which is, in the judging panel’s discretion, inappropriate, offensive or demeaning to SaskPower Shand Greenhouse’s reputation or goodwill.
- General Terms and Conditions: By participating, entrants agree that SaskPower Shand Greenhouse is not responsible or liable for any losses, damages, rights, claims and actions of any kind in connection with or resulting from participation in the contest.
By providing personal information to SaskPower Shand Greenhouse in the entry form, entrants consent to the storage and retention of such personal information by SaskPower Shand Greenhouse. Any information collected by SaskPower Shand Greenhouse will not be shared with or sold to a third party without the written permission of the entrant excepting the winners’ names and town/city which may be published and used for promotional and publicity purposes.
Failure to meet any or all rules will result in disqualification.
Grand Prize
Toshiba Satellite
L300
(not exactly as shown)
Prize of similar or greater value may be substituted.
2nd Prize
Apple iPod Touch
Revolutionary multi-touch interface
3.5-inch widescreen colour display
Wi-Fi (802.11b/g)
Safari, YouTube, iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store 8mm thin
Prize of similar or greater value may be substituted.
To the winning school
$1000 to the winning school for the purchase of A.V. hub equipment
Prize of similar or greater value may be substituted.
Currently more than half of Saskatchewan's electricity comes from burning fossil fuels - mostly coal and natural gas - which release greenhouse gases into the environment. Top scientists agree that these greenhouse gases are contributing to climate change.
Other things such as driving a car, heating our homes, and operating farm machinery also produce greenhouse gases. Stuff that we do every day.
Every time we use energy, there's a cost - environmental and economic. There are many things that can be done to address both these issues. And that's where your video comes in. Raise your voice! Direct your videos with an environmental theme. Think globally, think nationally, think locally.
Check out these terms and definitions to get you going on your research and get ideas for your video.
Biodegradable: Capable of decomposing under natural conditions.
Biodiversity: Refers to the variety and variability among living organisms and the ecological complexes in which they occur.
Biomass: all of the living material in a given area; typically refers to vegetation and can be used directly as a fuel or can be processed to produce Biofuels.
Carbon Credits: recognition of a financial value to the capturing of carbon dioxide.
Carbon cycle: the biogeochemical cycle by which carbon is exchanged between the biosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere of the Earth.
Carbon dioxide: is a chemical compound composed of one carbon and two oxygen atoms. It is present in the Earth's atmosphere and acts as a greenhouse gas. Man-made sources of carbon dioxide come mainly from the burning of various fossil fuels.
Clean coal: coal chemically washed of minerals and impurities, sometimes gasified, burned and the resulting flue gases treated with steam, with the purpose of almost completely eradicating sulphur dioxide and reburned so as to make the carbon dioxide in the flue gas economically recoverable.
Climate change: sometimes used to refer to all forms of climatic inconsistency, but because the Earth's climate is never static, the term is more properly used to imply a significant change from one climatic condition to another. In some cases, 'climate change' has been used synonymously with the term, 'global warming'; scientists however, tend to use the term in the wider sense to also include natural changes in climate.
Cogeneration: A process in which an industrial facility uses its waste energy to produce heat or electricity.
Compact fluorescent light (CFL): Small fluorescent light bulbs used as more efficient alternatives to incandescent lighting. Also called PL, CFL, Twin-Tube, or BIAX lamps.
Conserve: To use carefully or sparingly, avoiding waste.
Corporate social responsibility: A business outlook that acknowledges responsibilities to stakeholders not traditionally accepted, including suppliers, customers and employees as well as local and international communities in which it operates and the natural environment.
Cost/Benefit analysis: A quantitative evaluation of the costs which would have incurred by implementing an environmental regulation versus the overall benefits to society of the proposed action.
Demand-side management: a technique to reduce peak demand under periods where the systems are constrained. This peak demand management does not necessarily decrease total energy consumption but does reduce the need for future investments in networks and/or power plants by increasing efficiency.
Distribution Generation: the process by which numerous small electricity generators are networked together to create a stable energy grid, reducing the amount of energy lost in transmitting electricity and promoting the use of environmentally friendly generating methods.
Ecological/Environmental sustainability: Maintenance of ecosystem components and functions for future generations.
Economics: studies human choice behavior and how it effects the production, distribution, and consumption of scarce resources; studies how individuals and societies seek to satisfy needs and wants through incentives, choices, and allocation of scarce resources.
Ecosystem: The interacting system of a biological community and its non-living environmental surroundings.
Emissions: Pollution discharged into the atmosphere from smokestacks, other vents, and surface areas of commercial or industrial facilities; from residential chimneys; and from motor vehicle, locomotive, or aircraft exhausts.
Emissions trading: The creation of surplus emission reductions at certain stacks, vents or similar emissions sources and the use of this surplus to meet or redefine pollution requirements applicable to other emissions sources. This allows one source to increase emissions when another source reduces them, maintaining an overall constant emission level. Facilities that reduce emissions substantially may "bank" their "credits" or sell them to other facilities or industries.
Energy: the ability to make things work; resulting in heating up, lighting up and making sound.
Environment: a complex of surrounding circumstances, conditions, or influences in which a thing is situated or is developed, or in which a person or organism lives, modifying and determining its life or character.
Fuel efficiency: the proportion of energy released by fuel combustion that is converted into useful energy.
Fossil fuel: Fuel derived from ancient organic remains; e.g. peat, coal, crude oil, and natural gas.
Greenhouse effect: The warming of the Earth's atmosphere attributed to a buildup of carbon dioxide or other gases; some scientists think that this build-up allows the sun's rays to heat the Earth, while making the infra-red radiation atmosphere opaque to infra-red radiation, thereby preventing a counterbalancing loss of heat.
Greenhouse gas: A gas, such as carbon dioxide or methane, which contributes to potential climate change.
Ground water: The supply of fresh water found beneath the Earth's surface, usually in aquifers, which supply wells and springs. Because ground water is a major source of drinking water, there is growing concern over contamination from leaching agricultural or industrial pollutants or leaking underground storage tanks.
Hydro power: harnesses the energy of moving or falling water. This is usually in the form of hydroelectricity from a dam, but it can be used directly as a mechanical force.
Lifestyle: the way a person or group lives. Typically reflects an individual's attitudes, values or worldview, and implies a conscious or unconscious choice between one set of behaviours and some other sets of behaviours.
Methane: A colorless, nonpoisonous, flammable gas created by anaerobic decomposition of organic compounds. A major component of natural gas used in the home.
Net Metering: a process that allows small energy producers to sell excess power back to a power utility.
Nuclear Power: typically referring to the production of electricity by utilizing the atomic nucleus.
Ozone layer: The protective layer in the atmosphere, about 15 miles above the ground that absorbs some of the sun's ultraviolet rays, thereby reducing the amount of potentially harmful radiation that reaches the earth's surface.
Photosynthesis: the process by which plants convert water, sunlight and carbon dioxide to sugar and oxygen.
Pollution: the release of chemicals, physical, biological or radioactive contaminants to the environment.
Population Growth: change in population over a time period.
Reclamation: process of reclaiming something from loss or from a less useful condition.
Resource Depletion: exhaustion of raw materials in a region.
Renewable energy sources: energy sources which are not destroyed when their energy is harnessed.
Social Responsibility: eliminating corrupt, irresponsible or unethical behaviour that might bring harm to the community, its people or the environment before the behaviour happens.
Solar power: the technology of obtaining usable energy from the light of the Sun.
Sustainability: seeks to provide the best outcomes for the human and natural environments both now and into the indefinite future.
Wetlands: An area that is saturated by surface or ground water with vegetation adapted for life under those soil conditions, as swamps, bogs, fens, marshes, and estuaries.
Wind power: the conversion of wind energy into more useful forms, usually electricity using wind turbines
