Deadline: May 17, 2016 | Apply here
[Oops, the opportunity has already expired. Sign up to AlphaGamma weekly newsletters to stay ahead of the game]
Eligibility: 13 to 18 years old
Prize: A $50,000 scholarship from Google
Location: Online

The Google Science Fair is a global online science and engineering competition open to individuals and teams from ages 13 to 18. Submit a science or engineering project and win unbelievable prizes. #howcanwe make the world better with science?

Google Science Fair global online competition

The competition is partnering  with LEGO Education, National Geographic, Scientific American and Virgin Galactic to offer some unbelievable awards. If your Science Fair submission is something you built to solve an engineering challenge, you’ll be eligible to win the Virgin Galactic Pioneer Award or the LEGO® Education Builder Award. If your project offers a new way to look at the world, asking questions and answering them with experimentation, you’ll be eligible to win the National Geographic Explorer Award or Scientific American Innovator Award.

Prizes

The 16 global finalists, along with a parent or guardian, will travel to Google headquarters in Mountain View, CA to present their project to the judges and compete for the awards listed above.

The Grand Prize
The Grand Prize winner will receive $50,000 in scholarship funding. The $50,000 Google scholarship is intended to further the Grand Prize winner’s education. If a team wins the prize, the scholarship’s value will be divided equally among the teammates.

The Scientific American Innovator award
The Scientific American Innovator award honors an outstanding project with an experimental approach to answering some of the greatest questions in our natural world. The winner will receive:

• $15,000 educational scholarship.
• A year-long mentorship.

The National Geographic Explorer Award
The National Geographic Explorer Award honors an outstanding project with an experimental approach to answering some of the greatest questions in our natural world. The winner will receive:

• $15,000 educational scholarship.
• A year-long mentorship.

The LEGO® Education Builder Award
The LEGO® Education Builder Award honors a student who uses an innovative, hands-on approach to solve some of the greatest engineering challenges. The winner will receive:

• $15,000 educational scholarship.
• A year-long mentorship.

The Virgin Galactic Pioneer award
The Virgin Galactic Pioneer award honors a student who uses an innovative, hands-on approach to solve some of the greatest engineering challenges. The winner will receive:

• $15,000 educational scholarship.
• A year-long mentorship.

The Community Impact Awards
The Community Impact Awards honor five projects that make a practical difference in his or her community by addressing an environmental, health or resources challenge.

To help develop their project, each winner will be awarded $1,000 in an educational scholarship and a year-long mentorship from a Google Science Fair partner organization. Each winner, along with a parent or guardian, will also be invited to our Global Finalist event in Mountain View, CA in September.

One winner from each of the following regions will be announced during our Regional Finalist announcement:

• Africa and the Middle East
• Asia Pacific
• Europe
• Latin America
• North America

If a team wins the prize, the scholarship’s value will be divided equally among the teammates.

The Inspiring Educator Award
The Inspiring Educator Award honors the contributions of one outstanding educator who goes above and beyond to encourage their students to achieve great things.

The winner will receive a $5,000 classroom grant and a $5,000 gift card for educational products from LEGO Education.
The Global finalist prizes
The 16 global finalists will receive a variety of exciting prizes. Prizes for the finalists include:

A LEGO Education Goodie Bag: A LEGO Education backpack, accompanied by one LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 core set, charger and single software license.Offered by LEGO
+ Scientific American subscription: A free 12-month subscription to Scientific American magazine, in both print and digital
+ National Geographic subscription: A free 12-month subscription.
+ A Virgin Galactic Goodie Bag
+ A Google Goodie Bag

Eligibility

The Google Science Fair global online competition is open to full-time and home-schooled students around the world, between ages of 13 and 18 (these ages are slightly different in a few countries like Israel, South Korea and a few countries in Europe. See Official Rules for restrictions about eligibility, including some countries where students are prohibited by law to enter the competition.

You can enter on your own, or in a team of two or three. If you’re entering in a team, you can all sign up individually, but you’ll need to link your dashboards together so you can all work on the same project.

One team member sends the unique Team Code, which everyone has on their dashboard, to the other team members (if your teammate hasn’t received an invite you’ve sent, ask them to check their junk/spam box). The other team members can enter this code either when they register, or on their project dashboard if they’ve already registered. Once they’ve done this, any work that they’ve done on their own project will be lost.

Topics

Entrants can select one (1) of the following topics as a main topic and up to two (2) sub topics for their Entry:

• Flora & Fauna
• Food Science
• Earth & Environmental Sciences
• Inventions & Innovation
• Electricity & Electronics
• Robotics
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Physics
• Behavioral & Social Sciences
• Energy & Space
• Astrophysics
• Computer Science & Math