Stick Science Contest: Judging
Winning:
There will be first, second, and third place winners in the 13 and up category.
There will be first and second place winners in the 12 and under category.
Judging:
Entries will be judged in three areas:
1. Accuracy -- Correct portrayal of science concepts.
2. Creativity -- Did you convey your point in a way that will stick in the "average person's" mind?
3. Clarity -- Can we make sense of what you wrote and what you drew? You will not be judged on artistic talent, but the work needs to be clean enough for us to tell what is going on.
There will be two rounds of judging. First, all entries will be judged by a panel of Florida Citizens for Science members. They will whittle the entries down to a top 10 in the 13 and up category, and a top five in the 12 and under category. Those entries will then be presented to our "celebrity" judges who will pick the final winners.
Your celebrity judges are:
- Genie Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education.
- Phil Plait, "Bad Astronomy" blogger at Discover magazine, and author whose latest book is Death from the Skies!
- Carl Zimmer, science writer whose articles regularly appear in the New York Times and Discover magazine, "The Loom" blogger at Discover magazine, and author whose latest book is Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life.
- Kate Miller, found of Charlie's Playhouse.
What will happen to your cartoons:
First of all, the winning entries can be refined/redrawn by Dr. Kate Miller. If you want your cartoon characters to stay stick figures, that's fine; we will work together to decide if Kate can simply clean up your work a bit. If you want your work to be fleshed out into a "real" cartoon, we can do that, too. We can even leave the cartoon completely alone if you like. We just want your cartoon professional-looking for the next step.
The completed winning cartoons will then actually be used to educate the public through Florida Citizens for Science, the National Center for Science Education, and other pro-science groups/organizations. The cartoons may be used in flyers to lawmakers, on websites, or we can maybe even get them published in newspapers, pamphlets or books. The educational sky is the limit.
