Environmental Law Program

Annual Environmental Law Golden Tree Film Festival and Awards Ceremony

2011 Golden Trees

Since 2002, students in Professor Percival's Environmental Law class have enjoyed an unusual assignment: to split up into small groups and make a short film about an environmental issue that concerns them. The purpose of the ungraded assignment is to make students think about how to communicate complicated regulatory policy issues to the public. With the rise of You Tube and other new media outlets, digital video-making has become a valuable tool for influencing public opinion.

A total of 36 students in the fall 2011 Environmental Law class made twelve environmental law films. As in past years the films demonstrated their enormous creativity. On April 2^nd, 2012, the coveted "Golden Tree" awards were presented to the best films in ten categories as voted by an independent panel of judges (Prof. Dachille, Prof. Vaughns, Dominic Dachille, Jill Smith, and Huang Jing). The Golden Tree Award Ceremony will be held on March 27, 2013 in the Ceremonial Courtroom for the fall 2012 Environmental Law Class submissions. Please join us!

Last year (in 2012), in an effort to be more environmentally sustainable, the Environmental Law Program opted to give prizes of hand-painted clay pots with small flowers in them instead of the awards of the past which were small painted gold artificial trees. Hopefully the students who won the awards will re-plant them and watch them grow as a reminder of the educational value in creating these films.

The 2012 Winners were as follows:

• Most Educational: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch (Justin Noe, Amir Heyat & Justin Haas)
• Best Special Effects: Phil & Ned's Excellent Adventure (Rebecca Maddox, Colin Hood, Bridget Daly, Helen Wolf, James O'Donnell & Mario Medina)
• Best Use of Humor: Phil & Ned's Excellent Adventure (Rebecca Maddox, Colin Hood, Bridget Daly, Helen Wolf, James O'Donnell & Mario Medina)
• Best Cinematography: Cherishing the Chesapeake (Megan Ulrich, Lena Beery, & Ben Donoghue)
• Best Acting: Phil & Ned's Excellent Adventure (Rebecca Maddox, Colin Hood, Bridget Daly, Helen Wolf, James O'Donnell & Mario Medina)
• Best Interviews: Cherishing the Chesapeake (Megan Ulrich, Lena Beery, & Ben Donoghue)
• Best Sound: From Pollution to Solution: Alternative Fuel Vehicles (Abigail Lubow & Jonathan Huber)
• Best Screenplay: Phil & Ned's Excellent Adventure (Rebecca Maddox, Colin Hood, Bridget Daly, Helen Wolf, James O'Donnell & Mario Medina)
• Best Animation: From Pollution to Solution: Alternative Fuel Vehicles (Abigail Lubow & Jonathan Huber)
• Best Narration: Ringwood - a CERCLA Case Study (Tim Gilbert, Mike Kellerman, Beth Totman, Brittany Ditto & Will Harrington)
• Special Judge's Award for "Best Brazilian Poop Surfing": Origins of the Foam (Abdullah Hijazi & Edward Wong)
• Best Picture: Managing the Menhaden (Alan Dunklow, Andrew Kraus, Gabe Scott & Joey Kroart)

Honorable Mentions:

• Mountaintop Mining (Paul Wierenga & Matt Gravens)
• Waste to Energy: A Burning Question (Christine Gentry, Anne Havemann, KK Cooper & Kathleen Kennedy)
• Help Us! (Brandon Roby)
• A Bay Called Chesapeake (Lane Earnest, Brian Scherer, John Glass, & Evan McCulloch)
• How Much Oil Do You Drink? (Dan Flanagan)

Please check out our archive of previous years’ films.

Related Links

• 2011 Student Films
  • Managing the Menhaden
  • A Bay Called Chesapeake
  • Ringwood - a CERCLA Case Study
  • From Pollution to Solution: Alternative Fuel Vehicles
  • Phil & Ned's Excellent Adventure
  • The Great Pacific Garbage Patch
  • Help Us!
  • Cherishing the Chesapeake
• 2011 Student Films
  • Silent Running
  • Geo-Engineering
  • The Story of the Patapsco
  • Trashy Mermaid
  • Don’t Jump in the Harbor
  • Oysters in the Chesapeake Bay
  • LEED Project
  • ANWR: The Musical