Every year, Teams from across the globe gather at the Spellman HV Clean Tech Finals. They bring unique ideas from a wide variety of inspiration and purpose, competing against their peers in pursuit of a common goal: a sustainable future for all. For the past 8 years, this has been one of the highlights of everyone involved with the Competition. Hearing Competitors discuss their projects with the public and watching them talk about their research with each other shows what this competition is truly about: sharing ideas to make the world better for all. 

It saddens us to have to cancel this culminating event for so many student scientists. But we are extremely excited to be able to continue in a virtual format! So many academic events have been canceled this year, and we are incredibly happy to be able to continue to provide this opportunity! More information on how this will all work will be coming soon, so keep an eye out on our website and social media for more exciting news!

Finally, 2021 is the 10 year anniversary of the Clean Tech Competition, so we will see you then!

Registration opened 6 months ago, but now it is almost closed! We are racing towards the deadline to register Teams and submit papers, with each week seeming  quicker than the last! Are you ready for the next round of the 2020 Spellman Clean Tech Competition?!? I know I am!

For me as the administrator, the past several months, while busy, have still moved with a certain lumbering speed. It is a walk that has a purpose, but it is far off so the effort is a steady stream of work. However the next couple months are the point where the tributaries converge, and that stream grows into a rushing river that moves full steam ahead no matter what is in its path. This is the point where all the pieces fall into place. The point were we determine this years top Teams! 

So make sure you are wrapping up those papers (hopefully not just starting them!), proof read, submit, and then you are done until we announce our semi-finalists on June 5! Well, done with work on THIS project that is. I am sure many of you are already working on some new research project, or fantasizing about your next world changing design. And that is exactly what we want, for your intrigue and inquisitiveness not to end with your research here. Thats how we make the world a better place, right? 

The past few months have been a tumultuous time for everyone. The current pandemic situation is unprecedented in modern human history in its scale of impact on our world, and this upheaval has also influenced many of the projects you all are working on. This, combined with the safety concerns related to gathering a group of individuals from across the globe, has led the Competition to decide to postpone our Finals event, and delay our timeline a bit. We hope this allows you to feel more confident in your work. To feel better about your results. To only submit the very best you have to offer, because we would expect nothing less!

The new dates are as follows:

• Registration Ends – Friday, May 8
• Papers Due – Wednesday, May 13
• Semi-finalist announcement – Friday, June 5
• Finalist Announcement – Monday, June 8
• Finals – Early August

We are working hard to get a new Finals date lined up, while also keeping a close eye on the safety recommendations that factor in to such a decision. These times are strange, but we will continue to do all we can to ensure the Competition goes on!

Are you someone who procrastinates? Started research recently? Totally forgot about this Competition to begin with? Well the good news is you still have time to register! The registration period ends on April 10, and papers are now due on April 12, so you still have time to get your work done and papers submitted!

In case you missed our original post, we had extended registration to accommodate teams met at the National Science Teaching Association conference in Boston! However due to global conditions I am sure you have all heard of more than you care, the conference was cancelled. While saddened by this, we fully support this decision by the NSTA to help keep everyone as safe as possible. 

However this works out for anyone who has not yet entered! So practice your best social distancing skills, wrap up that research, finalize that paper, and finish your registration in the Clean Tech Competition! 

My how time flies when you are busy! It seems like just yesterday it was the first day of a new year, and here we are just days away from the start of the third month! March Madness may be a term used in college basketball (at least here in the States) but here at the Competition, it certainly also applies to us. 

March puts us in the final stretch for registration and Competition awareness, so we are hustling and bustling to get the word out to as many people as we can! You may have received an email or seen our posts on Facebook (hopefully the promoted ones too!) and I hope you have registered your team and sent it on to a friend (or three!)

With over a month to go for registrations, the Competition has just crossed into the 21 country tally! Recent additions include India, the UAE, Khazakstan, Kenya, Nigeria and Brazil! With teams from Brazil hopping on, we now have entrants from every continent on earth, and we are showing no signs of stopping. We have said this more times than we can count, but we are a global competition for a global problem. The issue of a sustainable future affects all of us, no matter what country, continent, community or culture that we are a part of. This is why we have chosen Reducing Individual Impacts as our theme for the year, because we want the impact to be felt on a personal level for everyone!

 

If you are reading this, then odds are you care a great deal about the environment and understand the gravity of the situation we are currently in. It is a fight for the life of everything we know. To you and I, that is a very big deal. We understand why this is an issue, and how it became an issue, and what we have to do to try to prevent it. But a lot of people do not, far more than is really imaginable and it hard to understand why. 

The conclusion I have come to, and have read many an article or opinion piece that has similar ideas, is that it is not so much that these people do not care, but that they do not know how to care. And I do not mean that in a “they have no emotions way” but in a they do not fully understand how it works way, and do not care to learn more. Often these are intelligent people. They are not unable to grasp the concept, they just have learned what they have learned, and decided that they know enough about it, and chose to claim they have read all that matters on the subject and that the rest is just not true or an exaggeration. 

This is why, when confronted someone who does not share the same ideals as yourself on this (or any) subject, it is important not to get angry and lash out, because that only puts people on the defensive and less likely to listen. Asking them to explain how they came to their conclusion and then gently pointing out inconsistencies and misconceptions works much better. Attacking the whole basis of someones ideas, especially someone who is able to understand the full picture as long as they have the full information, is a surefire way to make them not wish to listen to you at all. And then you have truly lost. 

Well, that got more philosophical than I expected, but I hope you see the point! It is hard not to get upset about something you feel so very passionate about. But if you are to help someone see the error in their way, you have to talk with them, not just at them. 

Those of you keeping up with the Clean Tech Competition social media recently know that I recently spent some time in England attending the Association for Science Education’s Annual Conference! The Association for Science Education (ASE) is the professional network for the United Kingdoms science educators, and last week over 2,500 of their members (and many from outside the UK) met at the University of Reading for several days of networking and professional development. I was lucky enough to attend and I am glad that I did! 

Each day was packed with lectures and demonstrations, so many so that it was extremely hard to chose which ones to attend! I saw more talks on research programs in high schools than I can even calculate, and it was a great place to introduce the competition to a wider audience than previously possible. Everyone I spoke with was enthusiastic about the Competition, and promised to pass on the information to either their students or colleagues. 

The atmosphere was incredibly inviting and inspiring to anyone with a remote interest in science. A lot of the sessions focused on how to integrate an understanding of sustainability and environmental appreciation, which was a wonderful thing to see since that is obviously the focus of the Clean Tech Competition!

If any of you ever get the chance to attend, then I highly encourage it! We will certainly be back next year, maybe to give a presentation or two on how teachers can integrate CTC into their curriculum, and bring environmental enthusiasm to their classroom and beyond. 

Running a global competition means meeting an international audience, which can sometimes be more difficult than you would expect while sitting at a desk, even in a highly connected world such as ours. So every so often, we travel outside of our New York base to meet new friends! This time, I am visiting the Association for Science Education Annual Conference in Reading, England!

Today is the second day of the event, and while I had hoped to write for you all yesterday to preempt the event, I simply did not find the time between flying across the Atlantic and rushing about this way and that to find my hotel, find the venue and, most importantly, finding new friends! 

Yesterdays event focused on an international audience, while today includes almost 2,500 of the United Kingdoms most intriguing and excited science teachers, researchers, instructors and specialists, all coming together to talk about their mutual love for science and the various techniques used to inspire and intrigue the next generation of innovators!

I will be posting updates when I can on our Facebook page, so keep an eye on that for pictures, inspiring quotes, and anything else I determine to be interesting enough to share! Though, to be honest, I feel as if everything here is inspiring enough to share with you all, but sadly I do not think live streaming the entire thing would be the best tactic! 

In any case, your Administrator is abroad and searching to make new friends to help our once small Competition grow even larger than ever before! It is only through a group effort that we will solve our sustainability issues, and I can think of no place better right now than to be here!

Happy 2020 everyone! 2019 was a momentous one for the Competition, as we saw our most widespread year yet and met at an extremely prestigious and welcoming university! For me, it was a year of a lot of firsts as I waded through many personal challenges to make this event happen, and to be honest, I am very proud of myself and what I was able to accomplish professionally. Every day should be spent trying to better and improve yourself and what you can handle, and I hope you all tried as hard (and hopefully harder!) than I did this last year for myself.

 

It is so incredibly exciting the have finally reached the year itself that we hold our next competition! Even though we still have 7 months until the Finals event, that time is going to fly by faster than you would imagine. There is still plenty of time to work on your projects and papers, but that time is going quick. Registration ends on March 13th and papers are due on the 3rd of April, so do not delay too long!