Grade 3 and 4 students at Keswick Ridge School have won a national award for producing a video about saving the Earth by using less energy and resources.

The video contest was part of the Energy Diet Challenge, co-sponsored by Canadian Geographic Magazine and Shell Canada.

Out of the 50 video submissions, Keswick Ridge was the runaway winner in the category Best Video by an Elementary School Class for their submission called "Let's Save the Earth," announced Monday.

The video earned 990 votes between the Energy Diet Website and Facebook, nearly 500 more votes than the runners-up.

For winning the video portion of the contest, teacher Suzanne Archibald’s class will receive a $2,000 gift card to upgrade technology at the school.

'So I think they are truly becoming energy literate and hopefully being able to make some wise energy choices for the rest of their lives.'—Ellen Curtis, Educational Consultant for Canadian Geographic

Archibald said she initiated the project because it was a great learning opportunity.

"There are so many things we learned," Archibald said, "But I think they really got the understanding that they could make a difference, which was a huge part of it, and also of different ways they could conserve energy."

More than 11,000 students from more than 500 classrooms across Canada participated in the challenge.

Lindsey McAndrews, with Shell Canada, said the program is designed to teach all Canadians how to be more conscious about how they use energy.

"The Energy Diet Challenge is a three-year program designed to raise energy literacy among Canadians in general," McAndrews said.

Ellen Curtis, an educational consultant with Canadian Geographic, said she was impressed at the level of creativity the applicants showed.

"The big concepts and the big ideas that they were covering and they were able to convey in such a great way and such a creative and fun way is just incredible," Curtis said, "So I think they are truly becoming energy literate and hopefully being able to make some wise energy choices for the rest of their lives."

Student Aaron Grey said he learned a lot about how to save energy.

"You can turn off the water when you're brushing your teeth, use curly light bulbs (compact fluorescent bulbs), and when you're not using electronics you can turn them off," Aaron said.

Another student, Avery Morton, said much of what the students learned can be applied right in their classroom.

"We turn off the lights at snack and at lunch because we use light from the sun," Avery said.

Their winning video can be seen here.