Ventures Scholars Program | High School Resource Center | Competitions & Research Opportunities

As a high school student, you should immerse yourself in as many opportunities. Local, state, and national competitions are a great way to test your skills and to learn about what other students are doing.

Competitions also open the door to other opportunities. You will meet new people and explore new ideas.

Why are science projects important? Read this article to find out about the importance of developing a science project.

Having trouble getting started with your project? Here's a collection of sites which address just your problem.

Developing Projects for Your Science Fair
A comprehensive guide to creating your science fair project!

This handbook was created by the Lemelson-MIT Program to address the independent inventor's and aspiring entrepreneur's most frequently asked questions regarding United States patents. We hope that this handbook will provide some helpful information on the patenting and commercialization processes.

Science Fairs
Super Science Fair Projects homepage . . . your complete guide to projects, topics, experiments, and ideas.

Research at the Undergraduate Level
Many Ventures Scholars will need to participate in some form of undergraduate research, particularly if you are interested in pursuing graduate or professional school. Here is an interesting Web site that will help you understand research at the undergraduate level.

The following list provides you with information about science fairs and competitions.

American Computer Science League (ACSL)

ACSL organizes computer science contests and computer programming contests for junior and senior high school students. Last year, our 26th year of continuous operation, over 200 schools in the United States, Canada and (a few) from Japan and Europe are participating. ACSL is on the approved activities list of the National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP).

Read more:
http://www.acsl.org/

The American Mathematics Competitions (AMC) is dedicated to the goal of strengthening the mathematical capabilities of our nation's youth. We believe that one way to meet this goal is to identify, recognize and reward excellence in mathematics through a serics of national contests called the American Mathematics Contest 8 (AMC 8), the American Mathematics Contest 10 (AMC 10), the American Mathematics Contest 12 (AMC 12), the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), and the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad (USAMO).

The American Regions Mathematics League
The American Regions Mathematics League's annual competition brings together the nation's finest students. They meet, compete against, and socialize with one another, forming friendships and sharpening their mathematical skills.

Read more:
http://www.arml.com/

Biology Olympiad
Sponsored by the Center for Excellence in Education, the USA Biology Olympiad (USABO) is the premier competition in biology in the United States. As is the case with CEE's other pioneering education programs, the USA Biology Olympiad focuses on stimulating young scholars' intellectual curiosity and developing their critical thinking skills in biological reasoning. Leveraging the best scientific expertise to challenge students, CEE prepares talented students for the fascinating experience of national and international academic competitions.

Read more:
http://www.cee.org/usabo/index.shtml

Boosting Engineering, Science and Technology (BEST)
BEST is a non-profit, volunteer-based organization whose mission is to inspire students to pursue careers in engineering, science, and technology through participation in a sports-like, science and engineering-based robotics competition.

Read more:
http://www.bestinc.org/MVC/About/what_is_best

Botball
Presented in your region by KISS Institute for Practical Robotics, the Botball Educational Robotics Program integrates science, technology, engineering and math with robotics to keep your students on the forefront of technology. Any middle or high school aged student can participate in Botball as long as the team has an adult contact. The organization of the team is up to the team leader.

Read more:
http://www.botball.org/about_botball/index.html

California State Science Fair

The California State Science Fair is the final science fair of the academic year for students throughout the State of California in grades 6 - 12, serving California's future scientists since 1952. It is hosted by the California Science Center (formerly, the California Museum of Science and Industry).

To expose students to diverse environmental issues, ecosystems, and topography, the Canon Envirothon is hosted by a different state or province each year. In addition to the actual competition, the event also includes social, cultural, and educational activities organized by the Canon Envirothon Host Committee. Conducted over five consecutive days every summer during July or August, the Canon Envirothon is a competition comprising five testing/training stations and an oral presentation component. At the testing stations and the oral presentation, each team's performance is evaluated and scored by individuals with field expertise. At the conclusion of the competition, scores are combined for final ranking and award/prize distribution.

Chemistry Olympiad
The U.S. National Olympiad (USNCO) is a multi-tiered competition designed to stimulate and promote achievement in high school chemistry. The Goals of the USNCO and the Annual Schedule are set by a subcommittee of the ACS Society Committee on Education (SOCED).

Read more:
http://www.chemistry.org/portal/a/c/s/1/acsdisplay.html?DOC=education%5cstudent%5colympiad.html

The Consortium for Mathematics and Its Applications
High School Mathematical Contest in Modeling (HiMCM) offers students the opportunity to compete in a team setting using mathematics to present solutions to real-world modeling problems.

Read more:
http://www.comap.com/highschool/contests/

Welcome to the CSRA Regional Science & Engineering Fair, Inc. We are a private non-profit organization designed to aid schools, teachers, and students in developing an interest in all aspects of science and engineering through the science fair project. We are based in Augusta, Georgia and serve 18 counties in the Central Savannah River Area (CSRA) which includes portions of both Georgia and South Carolina. Every year, we sponsor a Regional Science Fair in the spring to bring the first place winners from local school science fairs for a competition.

Since the first Dallas Regional Science Fair in 1957, the annual event has grown to be one of the largest regional student fairs in the United States.

Destination ImagiNation, Inc.
Destination ImagiNation, Inc., the world’s largest creativity and problem solving organization, inspires participants in all of its programs, to learn the process, art, and skill associated with problem solving.

Read more:
http://www.destinationimagination.org/program_overview.html

Disease Detectives Event
Disease Detectives provides students an opportunity to hone their skills as science sleuths by learning the scientific method employed by epidemiologists—or disease detectives.

Read more:
http://www.cdc.gov/excite/disease_detectives/index.htm

The Dupont Challenge: Science Essay Awards Program
You can enter the nation’s premier Science Essay Awards Program: a)More than $13,000 in educational awards for students. b)First Place teacher prize includes expense-paid trip to Space Center Houston/NASA.

Read more:
http://glcomm.com/dupont/home.html

ExploraVision Competition
ExploraVision is a competition for students of all interest, skill, and ability levels in grades K-12. Entrants must be United States or Canadian citizens or legal residents, living within the United States, U.S. Territories, or Canada and enrolled full-time in a public, private or home school. The purpose of the competition is to encourage students to combine their imaginations with the tools of science to create and explore a vision of a future technology.

For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST)
FIRST inspires in young people, their schools and communities an appreciation of science and technology, and of how mastering these can enrich the lives of all.

Future Problem Solving Program
The Future Problem Solving Program (FPSP) engages students in creative problem solving. Founded by creativity pioneer, Dr. E. Paul Torrance, FPSP stimulates critical and creative thinking skills and encourages students to develop a vision for the future. FPSP features curricular and co-curricular competitive, as well as non-competitive, activities in creative problem solving. The Future Problem Solving Program involves over 250,000 students annually from the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Korea, Malaysia, and Russia.

Read more:
http://www.fpsp.org/

Great Doonbuggy Race
Students are required to design a vehicle that addresses a series of engineering problems that are similar to problems faced by the original Moonbuggy team.

Read more:
http://moonbuggy.msfc.nasa.gov/index.html

The Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament
The Harvard-MIT Mathematics Tournament (HMMT) is an annual math tournament for high school students, held at MIT and at Harvard in alternating years. It is run exclusively by MIT and Harvard students. Most of us participated in math contests in high school, and we try to incorporate what we liked best about those competitions into HMMT. We hope this will make the contest both challenging and entertaining for all the participants.

Read more:
http://web.mit.edu/hmmt/

High School Student Engineering Competitions
These links provide high schools students interested in engineering hands-on experience by participating in engineering-related competitions.

Intel Science Talent Search (Intel STS)
Previously known as the Westinghouse Science Talent Search Competition. This is a research competition for all seniors. The competition relies on a vast background of science experiences as well as a summer research project.

Read more:
http://www.sciserv.org

Intel International Science and Engineering Fair
The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) is the world's largest pre-college celebration of science. Held annually in May, the Intel ISEF brings together over 1,200 students from 40 nations to compete for scholarships, tuition grants, internships, scientific field trips and the grand prize: $50,000 college scholarship and a high-performance computer. Science Service founded the ISEF in 1950 and is very proud to have Intel as the title sponsor of this prestigious, international competition.

The International Brain Bee
The International Brain Bee (IBB) is a live Q & A competition that tests the neuroscience knowledge of high school students. Young men and women from all over North America compete to determine who is the "best brain" on such topics as intelligence, memory, emotions, sensations, movement, stress, aging, sleep, addiction, Alzheimer's, and stroke. In a two-step process, local competitions are held throughout North America, with the winners invited to the championship at the University of Maryland during Brain Awareness Week in March. The IBB is an attempt to motivate our youth to learn about the brain, capture their imagination and inspire them to pursue careers in biomedical brain research. We challenge educators and scientists to start a brain bee in their city. We challenge students to compete! It's fun, easy, and rewarding.

Read more:
http://web.sfn.org/baw/bee.cfm

International Bridge Building Contest

The construction and testing of model bridges promotes the study and application of fundamental principles physics and also helps high school students develop "hands on" skills through bridge construction. By participating in the Bridge Building Competition students get a flavor of what it is to be an Engineer, designing structures to a set of specifications and then seeing them perform their function. They are also provided with an academically-oriented extracurricular activity which is recognized school-wide.

Read more:
http://www.iit.edu/~hsbridge/database/search.cgi/:/public/index

Junior Engineering Technical Societies (JETS)
A challenging academic team competition, The Tests of Engineering Aptitude, Mathematics, and Science program enables high school students to learn team development and problem-solving skills using classroom mathematics to solve real-world problems. The TEAMS competition is an annual one-day, two-part event that consists of an open-book, open-discussion exam taken by teams of four-to-eight high school students. TEAMS presents the multidisciplinary aspect of engineering work by illustrating how math and science concepts work together and are applied to solve real-world problems.

Junior Science and Humanities Symposium
JSHS regional symposia invite the participation of all high school students who have completed an original research investigation in the sciences, engineering, or mathematics, to apply to the regional symposium and vie for awards and recognition, including the opportunity to advance to the National symposium. All students in grades 9-12, enrolled in public, private, or home schools within the area served by the JSHS regional symposium are eligible. Investigations reporting on experimental, field, observational, or applied research are eligible. While review or library research is a part of the research process, these investigations alone are not appropriate. (See Guidelines section for additional descriptive information.)

Read more:
http://www.jshs.org/

Mathematical Association of America Competition
The Mathematical Association of America's AMC offers the chance to compete with your peers from across the country. But the real rewards come from challenging each student with mathematics that is new, different, and "outside of the box." A letter received from a student sums it up best: "I would like to thank you very much for sponsoring the American Mathematics Competition. It has been one of the most significant experiences of my high school career. During the past three years' training for this competition, I have learned to look at problems from new perspectives, and my math knowledge has certainly grown. My experience with AMC has allowed me to participate in other programs and meet other students with the same interests. I really appreciate the opportunities and education this competition provides me."

The 56th Annual AMC 12 mathematics competition for students in 11th and 12th grades is on Tuesday, February 1, 2005, and Wednesday, February 16, 2005, in schools worldwide. In addition, the 6th Annual AMC 10 mathematics competitions for students in 9th and 10th grades will take place on the same dates. In 2004, more than 230,000 students from over 4,300 schools participated in these contests. The contest problems are designed to challenge outstanding mathematics students, and to encourage all students'
interest in mathematics.

The AMC 10 and AMC 12 lead to a series of increasingly selective math contests, all the way up to the USA Mathematics Olympiad and the selection of the USA team to be sent to the International Mathematical Olympiad, the premier international high school level problem solving contest.

If your school isn't already registered for this year's competition, encourage your math teacher to contact us for information on how you and your classmates can participate. And it's not too early to start preparing for next year's contests. More information is available at http://www.unl.edu/amc.

The Junior Science and Humanities Program (JSHS) was established in 1958 to increase the number of highly trained scientists and engineers in the United States by promoting research and experimentation at the secondary school level and by recognizing high school students for their original research achievements.

Mandelbrot Competition
Welcome to the Greater Testing Concepts home page! After fifteen years of operation, the Mandelbrot Competition is still the best round by round math contest in the United States. (At least according to a recent survey of its editors.) In a nutshell, here's why: the goal of the contest is to introduce high school students of all ability levels to accessible new topics in mathematics while providing stimulating, challenging problems to stretch the best students in the country. The team test portion of the contest, which emphasizes mathematical writing skills and effective group work, sets the Mandelbrot Competition apart as a truly educational contest.

Read more:
http://www.mandelbrot.org/

NASA Drop Tower Competition for High-School-Aged Student Teams
DIME is a NASA competition program which allows teams to design and build a science experiment which will then be operated in a NASA microgravity drop tower facility. This program is a project-oriented activity which lasts one school year for the selected teams. Teams will be comprised of high-school-aged students from (for example) a science class, a group of classes, a science club, or a scout troop. A team must have an adult advisor, such as a teacher or parent.

Read more:
http://microgravity.grc.nasa.gov/DIME.html#INTRO

NASA Space Settlement Contest
This annual contest is for 6-12th graders (11-18 years old) from anywhere in the world. Individuals, small teams of two to six, and large teams of seven or more (often whole classrooms with teacher leadership) may enter. Grades 6-9 and 10-12 are judged separately, except for the grand prize. Students develop space settlement designs and related materials.

Read more:
http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/SpaceSettlement/Contest/

NASA Student Involvement Program
This national program is your opportunity to join in NASA’s exploration of the universe, from the most distant stars to the earth beneath your feet. Join in the adventure! NSIP values the achievement and diversity of all students.

Read more:
http://www.nsip.net/index.cfm

National Ocean Sciences Bowl (NOSB)
Today, technological advances allow us to explore and research vast regions of the oceans which until recently were relatively unknown. With these new discoveries comes the potential to improve not only the economic well-being of our country but also our quality of life. Now our challenge is to continue the exploration and develop strategies for managing the oceans' resources. The National Ocean Sciences Bowl (NOSB) is one program that prepares the next generation of marine scientists, policy makers, teachers, explorers, researchers, technicians, environmental advocates, and informed citizens to accept this challenge.

Read more:
http://www.coreocean.org/Dev2Go.web?anchor=nosb_home_page

National Robotics Challenge
In 2003 the Society of Manufacturing Engineers decided that they were no longer able to sponsor their national robotics challenge. This opened the door for the three teachers from Marion, Ohio to offer sponsorship to a contest that was familiar to many schools in Ohio and around the nation. These individuals saw educational value in competitive events for their students. These teachers were also concerned about the rising costs involved with these competitions and wanted to try to create more cost effective competitions for kids. 2004 was the inaugural year for the Ohio TECH National Robotics Challenge. The contest was held at the Veterans Memorial Coliseum on the Marion County Fairgrounds in Marion, Ohio. We had over 250 students from 27 schools representing 7 states with 148 contest entries. The 2005 contest had over 300 participants and we are hoping for even more entries in 2006.

Read more:
http://www.nationalroboticschallenge.org/2006_information.htm

The National Science Bowl
The National Science Bowl® is a highly visible educational event and academic competition among teams of high school students who attend science seminars and compete in a verbal forum to solve technical problems and answer questions in all branches of science and math. The regional and national events encourage student involvement in math and science activities, improve awareness of career options in science and technology, and provide an avenue of enrichment and reward for academic science achievement.

Read more:
http://www.scied.science.doe.gov/nsb/

Odyssey of the Mind
Odyssey of the Mind is an international educational program that provides creative problem-solving opportunities for students from kindergarten through college. Kids apply their creativity to solve problems that range from building mechanical devices to presenting their own interpretation of literary classics. They then bring their solutions to competition on the local, state, and World level. Thousands of teams from throughout the U.S. and from about 25 other countries participate in the program.

Read more:
http://www.odysseyofthemind.com/learn_more.php

Physics Bowl
Students take a 40-question, timed, multiple-choice test in April, with their school's supervision. Exam questions are based on topics and concepts covered in a typical high school physics course. To enhance the distribution of awards, Division I is for first-year students and Division II is for second-year students. Each Division has 15 regions that have been established across the country to allow schools in each region to compete against one another. Specialized math and science schools compete in their own region. For more information about the AAPT Physics Bowl, contact the AAPT Programs department at (301) 209-3344 or aapt-prog@aapt.org.

RoboCupJunior
RoboCupJunior is a project-oriented educational initiative that sponsors local, regional and international robotic events for young students. It is designed to introduce RoboCup to primary and secondary school children, as well as undergraduates who do not have the resources to get involved in the senior leagues. The focus in the Junior league is on education.

Read more:
http://www.robocup.org/junior/

The regional Southeastern Michigan Science Fair is affiliated with the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. The Southeast Michigan region includes Livingston, Washtenaw, Monroe, Hillsdale and Lenawee counties. Students in grades 9 through 12 from any school in the region are eligible to enter Individual or Team projects in the Senior Division. Students in grades 7 and 8 from any school in the region are eligible to enter Individual or Team projects in the Junior Division.

The Science Olympiad Mission is to promote and improve student interest in science and to improve the quality of k-12 science education throughout the nation.

Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science & Technology
The Siemens Foundation provides more than $1 million in college scholarships and awards each year for talented high school students in the United States. Its signature programs, the Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science & Technology and the Siemens Awards for Advanced Placement, reward exceptional achievement in science, math and technology.

A guide has been prepared to help you in setting up your school fair. This guide offers insight to the process of running the fair, science fair participation and project approval process for students, SARSEF registration and participation, website resources, checklists on materials and timelines.

Team America Rocketry Challenge
AIA and the National Association of Rocketry (NAR), in partnership with NASA, the Department of Defense, and the 39 AIA members above, are proud to sponsor the 2006 Team America Rocketry Challenge, a national model rocket competition for U.S. high school and middle school students. A grand prize pool of over $60,000 in cash and savings bonds will be shared by the winning teams.

Read more:
http://www.rocketcontest.org/

ThinkQuest: Internet Challenge
The purpose of the competition is to promote the Internet Style of Learning - an interactive, participatory style that encourages students to take advantage of the Internet as a constantly growing source of information and as a powerful collaborative tool. Students work in teams of up to three students to create web sites for the use of other students.

USA Computing Olympiad
The USACO supports pre-college computing around the world through computer programming competitions and training materials. The USACO holds six Internet Contests during the academic year, and in the late Spring conducts the US Open, a proctored exam. Based on the results of these contests, 16 students are invited to an all-expense-paid training camp in the early summer, where 4 students are selected to be the US Team at the International Olympiad in Informatics (IOI).

Read more:
http://oldweb.uwp.edu/academic/mathematics/usaco/

The USA Mathematical Talent Search (USAMTS)
The USA Mathematical Talent Search (USAMTS) is a free mathematics competition open to all United States middle and high school students. The USAMTS is primarily funded by the National Security Agency, which has funded the program since 1992.

Read more:
http://www.usamts.org/

USC MESA offers numerous academic, hands-on and fun competitions throughout the year for students. Competitions are ways for students to demonstrate their knowledge, to be recognized, to visit university campuses, to meet students from other schools, to represent their school and USC MESA, and to have fun. Most importantly, competitions help students shine and look great on college applications.

http://viterbi.usc.edu/students/undergrad/ced/precollege/mesa/highschool/competition.htm

West Point Bridge Design Contest
The United States Military Academy is pleased to offer the third annual West Point Bridge Design Contest.

The purpose of the contest is to provide middle school and high school students with a realistic, engaging introduction to engineering. We provide this contest as a service to education--and as a tribute to the Academy's two hundred years of service to the United States of America.

Read more:
http://bridgecontest.usma.edu/index.htm