2021 Middle School Winners

Henry Zitoun is a 7^th grader at the Shorewood Intermediate school in Shorewood, Wisconsin. For Henry, the contest was a class assignment in his world geography class. Henry is passionate about environmental justice and “wanted to tell the story about how e-waste affects the world and how there are huge e-waste sites in poor countries, like the one in Ghana”. Though Henry submitted his video to the Promoting Environmental Justice topic, he believes “it falls into two categories”, adding “I also think it goes under ‘Re-Imagining Industrial Systems’ because it’s both a hazardous waste site and health safety concerns for the people of Ghana”.

Henry did not know much information regarding e-waste before the video contest, which prompted in-depth research about the topic. He shared, “I was researching hazardous waste sites and I fell upon the one in Ghana. I discovered there are huge e-waste sites usually in poor countries”. This inspired the topic for Henry’s video, expressing how he “was very affected by what [he] learned, that the soil is contaminated and will never be able to go back to normal. The chemicals the workers breathe are terrible.”  Henry reflected on his findings sharing, “I discovered that the amount of devices outnumbered the global population and began to wonder what happens to all these devices when people are done with them.” His video submission attempts to answer the questions he had.

This is Henry’s first experience with filmmaking. He admitted, “I have never done this before.” He has, however, won other awards such as a creativity award for a science project he worked on in elementary school. According to Henry, during the video editing process, “the hardest part was finding pictures that [he] had to search for under creative commons license and fit it under 60 seconds.” He advises future contest participants to, “do something that they’re passionate about and to think about the future.” For next year’s contest, he would like to see a topic about “greener solutions, so that there is less pollution.”

In his free time, Henry shared that he likes biking, inventing things, and spending time with his family. “My role model is Dean Kamen. He’s an inventor and an engineer,” he said. Adding that “he invented the Segway, the I-bot and a water purifying system that can process raw sewage.” Henry has been participating in remote learning all year. Although it’s had a social impact on his life, he’s thankful to be using this time to get closer to his family.