Google has announced the second annual Google Science Fair, an online science competition opened to students aged 13-18 from anywhere in the world. Google touts this as “the largest online science competition in the world,” and it touts CERN, The LEGO Group, National Geographic and Scientific American as partners.
Participants can have up to three partners. They pose a question, develop a hypothesis, test it with an experiment and submit the findings online. Last year’s winners became scientific superheroes, meeting the president, speaking at TEDx Women, just generally kicking butt. There are also prizes, including a $50,000 college scholarship, a 10-day trip to the Galapagos Islands with National Geographic or an internship at Google or any of the partner organizations.
Last year’s winners, Lauren Hodge, Naomi Shah and Shree Bose
This year, the contest is open to even more participants, accepting submissions in 13 languages (Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Spanish and Russian). 90 finalists around the world will be selected, and the top 15 will be flown to Mountain View, Calif. for the final event.
There’s also a new category this year, the Scientific American Science in Action award, for a project that addresses a social, environmental or health need. The winner will get $50,000 and a year-long mentorship to help implement the project.
The Google Science Fair is now open for submissions until Sunday, April 1 at 11:59 p.m. GMT (that’s 6:59 p.m. Eastern/3:59 p.m. Pacific in the U.S.). Submit your projects at google.com/sciencefair.
