FRIDAY FREEBEE: Let There Be Light

Need some cash to upgrade your school’s lighting equipment because your electricity bills are out of control? The top prize of Lutron’s Greenovation Bright Green Dream contest can provide $15,000 for renovating your school. Just have your students imagine how to cut your school’s electricity use and carbon footprint while enhancing the learning environment. The submission can be on paper or digital, and the deadline is October 12, 2009. Any questions? Try the Q&A about the contest.
 
 

Network Makeover

Is your school’s networking gear so old that you’re ashamed to look at it? D-Link and ComputerTV want to do something about it by giving away the equipment you need to revamp a network. Just make a video that lasts between 30 seconds and three minutes that shows why you (and not the thousands of others entrants) deserve a new network. Why not make a school project out of it that involves teachers, students and parents. Just get your entry in at Computer TV's site before midnight on Sunday, March 29th.

Do You Know the Way to San Jose?

That’s Costa Rica. Well, two hard working and lucky biology teachers will go to Costa Rico to study tropical ecosystems. Sponsored by Pearson, the Tropical Biology Scholarships 2009 will pay for two high school biology teachers to the study adventure of a career at the Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) in Costa Rica. Interested teachers need to apply online with a 500 word essay on how going to Costa Rico will change the way they teach science. The deadline is March 1st and the winners will be announced at the National Science Teachers Association Conference later in March. The two-week trip will take place in early July, 2009. On top of having the opportunity to explore the rain forests, the winners will conduct field research 

Instant History

If you’re looking for a fresh way to present last month’s inauguration of Barack Obama to social studies students, ABC-CLIO is sponsoring a contest for secondary school kids to write about history in the making. Called Think Historically, the contest invites teams of middle- and high-school students to submit a presentation (slide show, online essay, podcast or animation) about the ten people, events or locations that shaped history the most. The good news is that participants will get three months free access to ABC-CLIO’s 8 online databases to work with and $60,000 in cash and prizes are at stake, but the bad news is that the deadline for submissions is March 30.

 

Finding the Next Einstein

Have you ever had a kid in one of your classes who was so scientifically curious that you knew for sure she’d one day be a scientist or engineer but there wasn’t much you could provide for her other than encouragement? When encouragement isn’t enough, how does $50,000 sound? I thought so. The top prize in this year’s Young Scientist Challenge is a $50,000 savings bond and a trip to New York City. Sponsored by Discovery Education and 3M, the challenge seeks to find and develop the next generation of scientists that this country (and the world) needs. To compete, middle school students need to send in a 1 or 2 minute video that outlines how to solve a specific problem. Anything from solving global warming to cutting the glare you see on a TV screen are all fair game. Don’t worry if you can’t make a professional looking video because the clips will be judged on creativity, persuasiveness, classroom suitability and overall presentation, not on video skills. My advice to future mad scientists, get going because the clips need to be in by May 20, 2009.

Going Green With Prizes

If you are a middle-school teacher or administrator and you wanted to enter the We Can Change the World Challenge, but didn’t really know how, there will be a series of explanatory Webinars today (January 13 at 4:30 PM), Wednesday (January 14, at 5:30 and 6:45 PM) and Thursday (January 15, at 5:30 PM). The contest, the rules and the prizes will be discussed. Sponsored by Siemens, the National Science Teachers Association and Discovery, the contest is looking for groups of two or three middle-school students and a teacher or mentor to identify a key environmental issue in their school or community and create a solution to the problem. A winning team from each state will compete for a slew of prizes and an appearance on Discovery’s 24-hour Planet Green channel. The due date of March 15 is coming up quickly, so it’s time to get started.

For more info, go to the contest’s site and click on Events Center at the top. Click on List of Events at the left, scroll down to Other Events, and go to the Register link.

What is ... A lot of Fun

Need a little motivation to help keep the excitement up for teaching your next class? Try Classroom Jeopardy StandardsLink Teachers’ contest. Through the end of the year, teachers can test their knowledge of math, language arts and science every week to win Classroom Jeopardy games and $25 coupons for the classroom. The more you play, the greater your chances of winning the grand prize of a Classroom Jeopardy StandardsLink event at your school and other stuff. The big prize will be announced on January 16, 2009.

Next Stop, Fiji

Having trouble getting kids to write their traditional “what I did over my summer vacation essay”? Authur Fromer’s Budget Travel Web site can turn it into a class project and provide a little incentive for reluctant writers by offering a week-long trip to Fiji for the teacher. The rules don’t let those under the age of 21 win any of the prizes but they can participate. All the class has to do is register at the site and submit the essay before November 17. It will be judged by the site’s editors with the best one picked. On top of the Fiji trip, the contest will award $500 gift cards for the best travel video and photo. Sorry, the whole class can’t go.

Radio Free Classroom

If you’ve been trying to integrate podcasts and Internet radio into your curriculum and gathering around a PC to listen isn’t cutting it for your tech savvy kids, a stand-alone Web radio is a great addition to the classroom’s digital toolbox. Between now and Thanksgiving Com One is giving away one of its $200 Phoenix radios every week. Capable of bringing the BBC, Public radio shows and a variety of recorded podcasts, the Phoenix is portable and connects to the Internet via built-in WiFi. All you need to do to win is register.

Adobe School Innovation Awards Winners

Every year Adobe honors high school students that go above and beyond the ordinary in graphics and online arts. This year’s theme was “My Community, My Planet, My 21st Century.” More than 300 projects were submitted in Web Design and Development; Film and Video; and Graphic and Print Design.

May I have the envelope, please … The winners are:
 The outstanding overall submission was made by Macy Sarchet, Phillip David Mellon and Dillian Neiman from Gregory-Portland High School in Portland, Texas for their “Seagrass – My Community.” 
 In the Graphic and Print Design area, Nicholas Callahan from Watauga High School in Boone, N.C. won for “Stop Pollution.”
 In the Web Design and Development category the winners were Tony Guglielmi, Jacob Bowen, Kevin Matteson, Jon Wilber and Sam Morgan from Pickerington High School North in Pickerington, Ohio. Their project was “The Environment and You.”
 Richard Yeager, Kourtney Bryant, Craig Austin and Chris Deig from F.J. Reitz High School in Evansville, Ind. Won the best film award for “1937: Evansville's Great Flood.”

All the winning entries can be seen on Adobe’s Web site. To everyone else, better luck next year. The 2009 contest starts in the fall.