Living Evergreen Essay Contest

Have some opinions about the environment and sustainability?

More specifically, if you can write 700-1,000 words on one of the following topics:

1. What steps can you take in your everyday life to enhance and maintain the environment and
   improve sustainability?


2. What current technology and green-living practices do you and your family use today that helps
   improve the environment and what impacts do you think this makes on the environment?


3. What future technical advancements can you imagine for solving current environmental and
   sustainability challenges?

You should enter the Living Evergreen Essay Contest.

Winners will be awarded up to $200 in savings bonds (this is a good thing), among other things.

Turn around is short, though, all entries must be received by August 16, 2010.

For full rules and information.

The contest is open to all students in Washington State who are entering grades 7-12.

Good luck!

ECO-HERO? There's $500 in it.

From Action for Nature:

"WHY?
To recognize the individual accomplishments of young people (ages 8-16) whose personal actions have significantly improved the environment.

HOW?
Action For Nature will award cash prizes of up to $500 to young Eco-Heroes from around the world for their outstanding accomplishments in environmental advocacy, environmental health, research or protection of the natural world. Their individual initiatives will inspire others to preserve and protect our fragile environment.

ARE YOU AN ECO-HERO?

DO YOU KNOW AN ECO-HERO?"

Find out more.

Deadline is February 28, 2010.

Via SLJ.

Rising Star Creative Writing Competition

From The Nature of Words:


"The competition, now in its fourth year, is awarded at the annual literary festival, scheduled for November 4-8, 2009 in Bend, Oregon. Prizes will be awarded in fiction, literary nonfiction and poetry in two age categories, 15-18 and 19-25. Winning writers will receive a cash prize, inclusion of their winning entry in an anthology, recognition in an awards ceremony at the November festival, and a scholarship to one of The Nature of Words workshops in their winning genre."

• The competition is open to writers in Oregon, Washington and Idaho.


• Competition genres include poetry, fiction, literary nonfiction and literary non-fiction-nature essay.


• The nature essay should offer a reflection on the natural world as it affects and informs the personal world. The writing should demonstrate close observation of nature, as well as the ability of the writer to extrapolate from that observation nature’s ability to instruct mankind.


• All entrants must be a member of one of the eligible age categories: ages
  15-18 or ages 19-25.


• Entries must be received in The Nature of Words email (risingstar@thenatureofwords.org) no later than 12 midnight on the submission date of June 10, 2009.

Full details available here.

Are you an inventor?

Ashoka GenV and the Lemelson Foundation are having a cool contest: the Invent Your World Challenge. Fifty young inventors will use their creations to address a local or global challenge and create positive change.

Do you have an idea for a new technology or the adaptation of an existing technology that will help make life easier, the planet greener, or the world better?

Put together a team, submit a proposal, and you might qualify for a grant to make your dream a reality! And your team could also win a $20,000 in scholarship money!

Teens 12-20 can apply before March 15, 2009 here.