Winners of 2011-2012 High School Burn Awareness Video Contest

The winners of a statewide contest for high school media students, the YouTube™ Burn Awareness Video Contest, sponsored by the state Department of Fire Services, the Mass. Association of Safety and Fire Educators (MA SAFE), and the Mass. Property Insurance Underwriting Association, were announced on February 13, 2012 at event hosted by Shriners Hospitals for Children in Boston, a pediatric burn hospital

This is the fourth year of the contest and 60 teams from ten high schools in Agawam, Everett, Millis, Sharon, Sturbridge, Topsfield, Waltham, Westford, West Newbury and Worcester submitted entries. While all 60 videos were creative and interesting, the first place winning team was from Millis High School for their video Catch the Heat; the second place winners were from Sharon High School for their video Kids and Lighters, and the third place winners were from Masconomet Regional High for their video Girls Night Out. The Department of Fire Services has posted the winning videos on its You Tube™ channel at http://www.youtube.com/DFSOSFM.

Honorable Mentions

Teams from Nashoba Valley Technical High School in Westford and two from Masconomet Regional High in Topsfield received honorable mention for their entries.

Burn Awareness Video Contest

The contest was open to grade 9-12 students enrolled in Massachusetts’ schools and submissions had to be from school-sponsored communications courses or sponsored extra-curricular groups. Communications teachers or faculty sponsors were required to review and approve all storyboards before filming started. Videos were required to be one to three minutes long, explore burn prevention topics, be well researched, not demonstrate risky or unsafe behavior, and to be both educational and informative. This contest addressed learning standard components 27.6 (Gr. 9-10) and 27.8 (Gr. 11-12) of the Massachusetts English Language Arts Curriculum Framework (June 2001), Media Strand - General Standard 27: Media Production. School districts offering communications classes, which include the design and creation of media productions, were encouraged to promote this contest through an independent or group assignment as part of its curriculum delivery.

• Contest Rules and Rubric 
• Full Press Release on 2011-2012 Contest   

Prizes

MA SAFE and the Mass. Property Insurance Underwriting Association sponsored prizes for the top three winning videos. The Grand Prize was a digital video camera for the school and members of the winning team shared $200 in gifts cards from Best Buy™. The Second Place team shared $100 in gift cards from Best Buy™. The Third Place team shared $50 in gift cards from Best Buy.

Judges

The judges included Capt. Rick Tustin, president of MA SAFE; Ron Meehan from the Mass. Property Insurance Underwriting Association; Christine Farrell-O’Reilly, Director, of the MA Department of Public Health’s Residential Fire Injury Prevention Program; Kathy Golden, Director of Public Relations and Marketing, Shriners Hospitals for Children – Boston; Barry Ouellette, senior producer at DigiNovations, a full service video production company based in Concord (MA) serving the digital media needs of businesses, educational institutions and non profits; and Meaghan O’Connell, a graphic artist with the Department of Fire Services who represented the under 30 viewpoint.

Past Year’s Winners

To see past year’s winning videos, go to http://www.youtube.com/DFSOSFM 

Photos from the 2008 YouTube Contest award ceremony.