Overview
The ThinkQuest® Internet Challenge encourages students of ages 12 through 19, along with their coaches, to use the Internet to create high quality, information-rich Web-based educational tools and materials. The challenge, structured as a contest, encourages collaboration, leadership and critical thinking skills that help raise students' technological and academic prowess.

Goals
ThinkQuest promotes an "Internet Style of Learning", which is an interactive, participatory method that encourages students to learn by doing, and to take advantage of the Internet as a constantly growing source of information. It encourages collaboration via the Internet among students from different countries, backgrounds, and age groups from schools with different levels of access to technology resources. ThinkQuest teams have created a broad and valuable collection of Web based educational resources for use by others around the world. In so doing ThinkQuest allows students to move from passive information consumers to active knowledge producers whose work is used and valued by millions.

Awards
Awards totaling over $1 million include college scholarships of up to $25,000 for each student member of a winning team.

Teams
A team consists of two or three students and one-to-three coaches. Students are encouraged to form teams with other students from different age groups, nationalities, genders, and grade levels from schools with diverse levels of access to technology resources. Each student team member must be a full participant in the development and testing of the team's entry. Coaches help with team formation, provide guidance and encouragement, and help students locate resources in support of their efforts.

Categories
Teams submit their entries in any one of the following five categories: Arts & Literature, Science & Mathematics, Social Sciences, Sports & Health and Interdisciplinary.

Judging
Qualified judges are selected, and the judging is managed by the Internet Society. Initial rounds of judging are done on-line using a rubric based on the following six criteria: technological diversity among students's schools; team collaboration and diversity; educational value; entry quality; growth potential (the ability of the entry to grow in value from the contributions of it's users); and entry usage. Finalist teams are selected in each category and invited to the ThinkQuest Awards Weekend where the final judging takes place. Winners are selected after finalist judges review and discuss all aspects of each team's entry with the student creators and, if necessary, their coaches.

For More Info
For comprehensive entry information and guidelines, please visit the ThinkQuest Web site at www.thinkquest.org.


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