Win fabulous prizes & get published online!

The IOI-Malta Operational Centre of the University of Malta is launching two great new competitions for Primary and Secondary School children and youngsters under the age of 16. Fabulous prizes are being awarded to the winners and a number of participants will have the opportunity to see their work published on the IOI-Kids website (www.ioikids.net) and viewed both locally and overseas. All projects must be the original work of the participant.

“The IOI-Kids Young Journalist Award” is open to young reporters aged 5 to 15 years. Individuals or teams of students can participate and will need to prepare an article in the form of a news item. The contribution must consist of all the following attributes:

• an original news item or report based on true facts;
• focus on a theme related to the sea and/or the coast;
• relate an issue or event that occurred in or relates to a locality of the Maltese Islands, the Maltese Islands in general or the Mediterranean region; and
• combine with related images, drawings, audio or video clips.

“The IOI-Kids Best 2008 Project” is open to individuals or teams of students aged 5 to 15 years. The contributions are expected to consist of an instructive project that can be presented in several forms and with the following attributes:

• a write-up in the form of a lesson, an essay, poem or story, a web page, a database or collection that can be shared online, a set of notes on a selected topic, a PowerPoint presentation;.
• focus on a theme that relates to the sea and/or the coast; and
• complemented with images (in the form of photos or drawings) and/or audio or video clips.

Topics

News items/reports and projects can cover any of the following topics: past or future events; interesting and/or unusual incidents; recent scientific or other discoveries; conservation issues; species of plants or animals; ecosystems or places of interest; people whose work is connected to the sea, etc.

Submissions

Projects and news items can be submitted electronically as Word documents or in printed or written format. Web pages must be in HTML. Any accompanying images must be in .jpg format, audio clips in wav/mp3 format and video clips in avi format .

The deadline for submissions of both competitions is the 16 th May 2008 .

All works should be addressed to the attention of:

Ms. Maria Muscat, IOI-Malta Operational Centre, 43/1, Valley Rd., Birkirkara BKR 9015. or emailed to ioi-kids@capemalta.net

Submissions should be accompanied by the registration form.

Selection

For each competition, the participants shall be divided into two separate age groups (Age Group1: 5 to 10 years; Age Group 2: 11 to 15 years), for which separate prizes shall apply. All entries will be evaluated on the basis of:

1. online voting that will allow the direct involvement of children, youngsters and the general public in evaluating the submissions; and
2. peer review and judging by a Selection Panel.

The decisions taken by the Selection Panel will be final.