With everything we are discovering about the conditions for learning and the benefits of creating lifelong learners, educational contests and competitions are becoming increasingly more popular as a way for teachers to bring real-world applications of content into the classroom. With technology's affordances, taking part in real-time competitions has never been easier! I hope you will find some intriguing possibilities herein. Thanks to Jerry for some great leads on this topic. Happy St. Patty's Day!

• Academic Decathlon - http://www.usad.org/
  The U.S. Academic Decathlon is designed for high school students, and it is a very rigorous competition. The 2001 National Finals are being held in Anchorage April 18-21. This makes it an ideal time to read up on the contest and prepare to enter your students for next year. The site has all the details - of which there are many - but it is very well-organized and worth your effort if you're truly serious about taking your students to the next level.
• Debate Central - http://debate.uvm.edu/
  Here is a comprehensive site that covers almost anything you need to know to begin a debate team at your school and/or involve your team in all kinds of competitions. There's everything here from Lincoln-Douglass style debates through Policy debates, Parliamentary debates and even Internet debates! There's a reference library at your fingertips, streaming video of debate clips to help demonstrate effective techniques, lists of tournaments, scholarships, online resources and much, much more!
• Envirothon - http://www.envirothon.org/
  Billing itself as the largest high school environmental competition in North America, Canon sponsors this annual event to be held this year July 24-29, 2001 at Hinds Community College in Raymond, Mississippi. To enter, your team must be affiliated with your local conservation district and you must pay a registration fee. Once accepted, your team will compete in five station tests: Soils, Aquatics, Forestry, Wildlife, and a Current Environmental Issue. There is also a required oral presentation. There's lots of great links to online resources and detailed contest information on the site.
• ExploraVision - http://www.toshiba.com/tai/exploravision/
  Toshiba and the National Science Teacher's Association cosponsor this contest for grades K-12 in which students form research and development teams to examine present or future technologies, important breakthroughs or their consequences. While this year's deadline was February 2nd, this kind of intensive work can begin now in preparation for next year! Past winning entries include "Yuk to Yum" in which vegetables are made to taste better so people will make healthier food choices, "Cholestrobot " in which tiny robots are used to clear clogged veins and arteries, the "Past, Present and Future of Hearing Correction" and "The CVC (Chlorophyll-Photovoltaic Cells): Synthesized Plant Power".
• HP Young Writer's Contest - http://www.hpstudentcenter.com/contest/
  Open to students in grades K-6, the Young Writer's Contest encourages students to write on given prompts of "sparks" (a person, place and problem). There are story planning pages and a printable entry form to make the job easier. The contest offers support for both English and Spanish speaking students and entries can be sent in by teachers or parents. This year's deadline is March 31st. You can either jump in with both feet or keep the contest under your hat for next year!
• Intel Science Talent Search - http://www.intel.com/education/sts/
  Intel offers a really practical approach to celebrating the work of young scientists: have them begin developing a research project as a high school freshman, compete in local and regional science competitions, and enter the Intel contest as a senior having ironed out all the details of your work. In fact, entrants have to have their college entrance requirements completed as a condition for being accepted in the contest. The deadline for this academic year was this past November, but students are certainly encouraged to begin developing an idea for future submission. You can find out all the details right on the site.
• International Mathematical Olympiad - http://imo.math.ca/
  The IMO hosts secondary teams from 80 countries all competing to be the best. "Students work individually over a two day period on six challenging problems, presenting their solutions as essay-style proofs akin to those produced by research mathematicians." Once the problem-solving is complete, teams are free to take in the sights of the host city while entries are evaluated by contest judges. This year's championships will be held in Washington, DC July 1-14, 2001. Upcoming host countries include Scotland, Japan and Greece.
• NASA Student Involvement Program - http://www.nsip.net/
  Looking for a competition that teams your students up with the best and the brightest NASA has to offer? Open to grades three through twelve, the NSIP allows students to learn how technology is changing the ways we look at Earth and into Space. Aligned to national and state standards, this year's topics include My Planet Earth, Aeronautics & Space Science Journalism, Watching Earth Change, Design a Mission to Mars and Space Flight Opportunities . The deadlines for this year have past, but that's just incentive to get ready for next year! This well-designed site offers all kinds of support, and participating teams receive educator resource guides to support you in the classroom.
• National History Day - http://www.thehistorynet.com/NationalHistoryDay/
  The National History Day competition is hosted by the University of Maryland and will culminate June 10-14, 2001. It has two divisions: Junior (grades 6, 7, 8) and Senior (grades 9, 10, 11, 12) The program is very flexible offering both individual and group categories in paper (individual only), individual exhibit, group exhibit, individual performance, group performance, individual documentary and group documentary. There is a proposed theme to develop projects around - the site offers all the info you need to plan!
• Odyssey of the Mind - http://www.odysseyofthemind.com/
  The OM folks have really spruced up their website to reflect the quality of their competition! OM promotes creative problem solving and team work through assigned problems. Each team works the same problem and the solutions are then evaluated for efficiency and effectiveness. Here on the site you can look at practice problems (example from the site: "You are to build a structure of toothpicks and clay that will sit on a table behind a boundary line. The structure will cantilever, or stick out, as far as possible beyond the boundary line without touching the table surface.") The contest has age groups from elementary through college, and this year's finals are June 2-5 at the University of Maryland.
• Quiz Bowl - http://www.qunlimited.com/
  Here's a high school level competition that provides for three different locations around the country: New Orleans (May 31-June 3), Washington, D.C. (June 7-10) and Los Angeles (June 14-17). The top teams will then be flown to Los Angeles to participate in the finals. Each team is guaranteed at least 4 matches, and you must have won a local or state tournament in order to qualify. Read more about it on the site!
• ThinkQuest - http://www.thinkquest.org/
  You've seen some of the fabulous websites created for this competition featured in this newsletter and on hotlists around the Net. Here's your chance to participate in the thrill of international competition while working with students to research and create their own original website on a high interest topic! Proposals for the next round have to be in by September 5, 2001, so register login to this site to get started. Everything you need is here. And if you're working with elementary students, check out the ThinkQuest Junior competition!
  

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