There are many examples of how young people can contribute to science with they brilliant ideas and creative projects. We all know the story about a ten-year old girl from Canada who discovered a supernova and became the youngest person ever to find a stellar explosion. Also, there is a less known example of a group of 25 eight-to-ten-year old kids from Blackawton primary school in UK that published a study about how bumble bees use different color and pattern identification strategies to determine which flower to choose for getting nectar and which ones to avoid.
Unfortunately, on the other side, there are probably even more young people who have never been given the opportunity to explore their visions and the young geniuses in them simply died.
Therefore, in order to help young scientists with the interesting projects, Google has launched the first-ever global online science fair, allowing any student from anywhere in the world to participate in the competition.
“Science fairs help students to explore their vision and curiosity through science,” said Google’s Tom Oliveri. “Our company was founded on an experiment. We firmly believe that science can change the world.”
The competition is open to students aged 13-18 years old and all they need, beside their ideas for a scientific experiments, is an Internet connection and a Google account, as their projects will be submitted through Google Sites. Competitors can choose to work on their own or in a team of two or three. And of course, they are allowed to use the panoply of Google products to record and share their work.
All entries are due April 4, 2011 and judging will occur in July 2011. Entries will be judged on eight core criteria, which include the student’s presentation, question, hypothesis, research, experiment, data, observations, and conclusion presented in either a two-minute video or a 20-slide presentation.
As Google explained, there will be three finalist winners, one in each age category (13-14, 15-16, 17-18), and one of the finalist winners will be named the Grand Prize winner. In partnership with Lego, CERN, Scientific American and National Geographic, Google prepared fantastic prizes for the winners. The prizes include scholarships that are intended to be used towards the finalists’ further education, visits to major research institutions, Scientific American subscriptions, and LEGO products. The Grand Prize winner will win a trip to the Galapagos Islands with National Geographic Expeditions, a $50,000 scholarship from Google and an experience at a sponsoring organization.
For more information about entering the competition, judges, judging criteria and prizes, visit Google Science Fair website or watch video below