Last year, Quinn Staley was the only junior in a class full of seniors in Stephanie Soares’ AP Environmental Science class at Wareham High School. When the seniors graduated, Soares was faced with the challenge of keeping her busy.

“I was alone with Ms. Soares for a month, so she had to come up with different projects for me to do,” said Staley, who’s currently a senior.

Earlier in the year, Soares, Staley, and other members of the class took a trip with the Buzzards Bay Coalition, a local non-profit organization that’s dedicated to preserving the bay, that involved testing water samples. It was then that Soares heard about a cell phone video contest put on by the Coalition.

After shooting a bit of video from the boat, Soares had Staley, an aspiring film student, edit it. Fast forward to this past week, and Staley is now the owner of a new Hero Four GoPro portable video camera after winning week three of the “Shoot the Summer” 60-second cell phone video contest.

Staley, who hopes to attend either Emerson College or Fitchburg State to study film, used the video to show some of what she learned last year.

“I talked about what I learned from the course, and how I’m responsible for things that happen in the watershed,” said Staley, who edited the video at Wareham High. “I was surprised—I didn’t really think anything was going to come out of it. It was a good experience.”

GoPros have become popular in recent years because of their portability, durability, and high quality of video.

Staley, who also writes, edits, and directs short films and is currently enrolled in Video III at the high school, is eager to put it to good use.

“I’m very excited—I should be able to do some cool stuff with it.”