2026 Student Showcase: Most Outstanding Entry Awards and Most Creative & Engaging

Many of the critical problems climate change presents communities around the world cannot be solved through datasets and formulas alone. That’s why both of these categories recognize that it takes creativity for innovation to take hold and flourish along with science and math in solving our toughest challenges.

That is why the CAVU team is excited to celebrate the winners of two standout award categories: Most Outstanding Entry and Most Creative & Engaging Project. These awards shine the spotlight on student teams whose projects rose above an incredibly tough field through their originality, execution, communication, and vision.

Whether through compelling design, innovative thinking, or unforgettable presentation, these students created projects that inspired our judges leaving a lasting impression on this year’s panel.

🌟 Most Outstanding Entry Award Winners

The Most Outstanding Entry Award recognizes projects that excelled across multiple areas of the Climate Innovation Challenge. These submissions demonstrated strong research, creative problem-solving, clear communication, and an ability to connect their ideas to real-world climate challenges.

Pollinators like bees are essential to our food systems and ecosystems—but climate change and habitat loss are putting them at risk. In this creative and informative project, students designed and built “Bee Hotels” to provide safe nesting spaces for solitary bees.

By combining science, storytelling, and hands-on action, this team demonstrates how a simple, scalable solution can help restore pollinator populations and protect biodiversity.

Middle School – $400
Try to Escape
Siddharth, Nathanael and Xandry – Grade 8
Fieldstone Middle School
New Jersey, USA

In a student designed video game world, players must escape a sewage treatment plant by repurposing water through smart shower heads. This project excels at connecting local action to the global impact, showing how everyday decisions can build toward meaningful environmental change.

High School – $500
Sunny Side Up
Bleakley, Nina and Fern – Grade 9
Maclay School
Florida, USA

This project explores agrivoltaics which combines solar energy and agriculture to maximize land use and reduce emissions by leveraging an innovative and mutually beneficial relationship between plants and solar power generation.

This inspiring international project highlighted the power of youth-led environmental action and community engagement. The judges were especially moved by the project’s sense of collaboration, purpose, and local impact.

🎨 Most Creative & Engaging Project Award Winners

The Most Creative & Engaging Project Award celebrates students who found unique and imaginative ways to communicate climate solutions. These projects stood out not only for their ideas, but for how effectively they captured attention, sparked curiosity, and brought audiences into the story.

Elementary School – $200
Vertical Kitchen Garden
Kairu, Francis, Patrick, Milton, Daisy Kaisha, Patricia, Elvis, Triton and Natalia – Grade 5
Ohana Brook Academy
Kenya

This project transformed sustainability into something visually engaging, practical, and inspiring. The team’s creativity and presentation style made the solution both accessible and memorable.

Middle School – $200
Our Vertical Shield
Student Team – Grades 4–6
Kericho Academy
Kenya

This innovative design reimagines how we grow food by maximizing space and resources. It reflects a strong understanding of sustainability and demonstrates how one solution can address multiple challenges at once.

High School – $200
Our Impact
Jayden, Thayer, Keymora, Alexander, Xander, Santiago, Douglas, Zerara – Grades 9 – 12
Maricopa Institute of Technology
Arizona, USA

This project showcases multiple student-led innovations including biofuels, atmospheric research, and engineering solutions.

🌍 Why These Projects Matter

Together, these winning projects reflect what makes the Climate Innovation Challenge so unique. Students are not simply learning about climate change, they are identifying problems in their communities, exploring solutions, and developing the communication skills needed to share those ideas with the world.

The projects recognized here demonstrate that climate education can be hopeful, hands-on, and deeply creative. They also show that young people already have the imagination and leadership needed to help shape a better future.

🙌 Special Thanks

A special thank you to Carissa Cabrera (@carissaandclimate) and Liberty Boyd, Ph.D. (@libertyology) for helping us celebrate and amplify these incredible student voices. Their support is helping bring these youth-led climate stories to wider audiences and inspiring more people to reimagine what climate education can look like.

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How This Year’s Showcase Works

This year, we’re doing things differently.

Instead of a single awards event, the CAVU Student Showcase is unfolding over several weeks, from now through May, bringing you closer to the students, stories, and solutions that empower our future.

Here’s how to follow along:

• Week of April 29th announcing CAVU Student Showcase kick off & Honorable Mentions (you are here)
• Each following Wednesday in May, winners will be announced at cavu.org/showcase, and @CAVUorg on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok.
• Full student videos are released on our @CAVUorg YouTube
• Award Categories and Announcements:
  • May 6 – Best Storytelling & Most Practical and Effective Concept
  • May 13 – Outstanding Entry & Most Creative and Engaging Project
  • May 20 – Most Impactful & Founder’s Award
  • May 27 – To Be Announced (it’s a secret)

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