Please read through the rules of participation in the Nord StarT competition. Content:
- General principles
- Educational practices by teachers, instructors and other educators
- Project works by children, youth and adult students
1. General principles
You can participate in the competition through an online form, which can be completed in English or in the language of the form unless specifically requested otherwise (please note the rules for projects and practices below). The language options of the form are: English, Faroese, Finnish, Islandic and Swedish.
You participate in the competition as a learning community that is represented by an adult contact person (e.g. a teacher or a principal). A learning community can be for example a kindergarten, school, high school, vocational school, an institution of higher education or a single group of learners such as a class, a course or a club, including groups from liberal education.
The theme of the competition is climate change.
The competition has two categories:
- Project works by teams of children, youth and adult students
- Educational practices by teachers, instructors and other educators from early childhood education to higher education
A learning community can participate with projects (one or more) and a best educational practice (one per learning community) or with just one of these. In addition to these general principles there are category specific rules of participation.
The assessment is based on the information provided via the online form by the reporting deadline.
It is the responsibility of the contact person to ensure…
- The provided information is accurate
- The shared links are working (the linked material have to accessible at least until 30.6.2022)
- Information and materials do not contain any material that violates copyright or other regulations/laws
- Materials (especially images and videos) have been published or may be published under a CC-BY-SA license
If a learning community do not follow the rules outlined in this document, they may be disqualified from the competition. This is only done if the situation cannot be corrected or resolved otherwise.
Copyright and Access Rights:
Property rights and copyrights of projects and practices belong to the authors. The competition organizers (Finnish Ministry of Education and Culture and LUMA Centre Finland network) will receive non-exclusive access to all projects, practices and material provided by the competition participants for an unlimited period. The Access Right includes the right to use, copy, and edit or commission changes without consideration, and to publish material in any way they please.
2. Educational practices
Only one educational practice per learning community can be submitted to the competition. A good educational practice is a teaching method, a model, a work instruction or an idea that the learning community has tried and found useful in implementing interdisciplinary and phenomenon-based learning, or project-based learning. The practice should have a link to climate change.
The following rules apply for practices in addition to the general rules of participation:
- Submission must include a written description (maximum length 5000 characters) about the best practice in English
- Submission must include a video that describes the best practice:
- Maximum length 3 minutes
- The video can be spoken in native language, however the subtitles must be provided in English
- Any additional material (e.g. lesson plans) can be submitted in native language
- Learning community can report a completely new practice or one that has been used for years
- It is possible to participate in the competition with a practice that is done in collaboration of different education levels. Participants choose the best fitting assessment category when filling in the online form:
- early childhood education
- pre-school and primary school
- lower secondary school
- upper secondary school
- higher education
- liberal education
3. Projects by children, youth and adult students
Projects are made by student teams consisted of children, youngsters and adult students. The project work is related to climate change and should highlight the role, competence and ideas of children, youth and adult students as the authors of the project work.
The following rules apply for projects in addition to the general rules of participation:
- The projects must be carried out in teams (minimum size: 2 persons, no maximum size)
- The projects don’t have to be ready, an idea or a plan is enough.
- More than one project per learning community can participate in the competition, however the individual project team members can only participate with one project
- The project is carried out and entered in the competition by the team members (children, youngsters or adult students). Support from the teacher/instructor is naturally allowed, but the degree of this support should be adjusted to the age of the project team members.
- The project includes a project creation (form free of choice)
- Submission of the project must include a project diary:
- Competition organizers and jury must have access to the entire content of a diary
- Diary can be made in native language, however a summary in English must be provided
- Submission must include a video presenting the project:
- Maximum length 3 minutes
- The video can be spoken in native language, however the subtitles must be provided in English
