Avon HS Students Show Sustainability Prowess In State Contest

Energize Connecticut

AVON, CT – Showing off their sustainability tendencies, Avon students Sergio Alio Prieto and Isabelle Shternberg were recently honored in the 20th Annual eesmarts Student Contest.

Presented by Energize Connecticut in partnership with Eversource and Avangrid subsidiaries, United Illuminating, Southern Connecticut Gas, and Connecticut Natural Gas, the eesmarts Student Contest invited Connecticut students in grades K-12 to showcase their energy smarts.

Participants chose from a variety of project formats based on their grade level, including poems, essays, posters, billboard advertisements, comic strips, short videos, persuasive images, and more.

Additionally, to celebrate the 20-year milestone, a teacher prompt was introduced, inviting educators to gather their students and friends and create a song or video about saving energy in their own classrooms.

Prieto and Shternberg, who are students at Avon High School, received first- and third-place in the ninth- to 12th-grade category.

For this category, students were asked to create a persuasive image, in words or pictures, that advocates for an energy efficiency/sustainable energy topic.

Prieto’s category-winning cartoon strip highlighted the differences between energy sources and challenged people to switch to renewable energy to protect the planet and achieve a clean energy future for all.

For Shternberg’s illustration, she drew Earth as someone who is sick from the air pollution caused by fossil fuels and calls out the need to implement renewable energy sources to overcome pollution.

More than 500 students throughout Connecticut submitted projects for consideration, and 35 entries from 26 schools in 25 Connecticut communities were selected as this year’s finalists.

Finalists attended an awards ceremony on May 13, at the Connecticut Science Center in Hartford and received their prizes and certificates.

For more information on the student contest and the EESmart program, visit www.EnergizeCT.com/eesmarts.