Academic competitions
Academic competitions between teams, or small learning communities, often spur students to work hard and “win one for the team.” Team-oriented academic competitions include:
- California Academic Decathlon (Outside Source), is designed for teams of high school students. However, teachers who want to encourage highly motivated students to prepare for high school can develop programs that mimic the California Academic Decathlon.
- Chess competition. Friendly chess tournaments at lunch can help introduce students to this game that stimulates critical thinking. The members of chess club can demonstrate their chess skills while learning organizational skills to host the event.
- Constitutional Rights Foundation: Mock Trial Program (Outside Source), like the academic decathlon, is a high school event. However, middle grades teachers who want to enhance their social studies lessons can challenge other teams to a mock trial over an event in history. The California Mock Trial site gives some guidelines that would prove helpful in setting up the event.
- 4th Arts Olympiad (2009-2012) Theme: My Favorite Sport (Outside Source), is a free global program for children ages 8 to 12, commences in classrooms with structured lesson plans that bridge the divide between athletic students and those not athletic by introducing the artist-athlete ideal of a creative mind and healthy body. Ensuing lesson plan activities result in paintings and digital art on the theme My Favorite Sport.
- Invention Convention (Outside Source), challenges teams from clubs, science classes, or a small learning community, including both science and math classes, to design inventions for a schoolwide Invention Convention. Such an event offers a great opportunity to involve local science and engineering firms, the media, and families.
- MATHCOUNTS® (Outside Source), is a national math enrichment, coaching, and competition program that promotes middle school mathematics achievement in every state and U.S. territory.
- Odyssey of the Mind (Outside Source), is a competitive program that encourages students to solve challenges creatively and to the best that they can be. They learn from and even cheer on their competitors. Odyssey of the Mind is not a competition about knowledge; instead, it focuses on how students work in teams to apply their knowledge, skills, and talents.
- Oracle®ThinkQuest (Outside Source), organizes students into teams to create the best educational Web sites and compete for exciting prizes.
U.S. Department of Energy: Office of Science-DOE National Science Bowl® (Outside Source) is similar to Quiz Bowl. Two teams of four students each compete to answer various science-related questions. In order to determine which student has the right to answer the question, a buzzer system is used, similar to those seen on the television show called Jeopardy!. This competition was organized and is sponsored by the United States Department of Energy since 2002.
While encouraging individual students to do their best in academic competitions such as spelling bees, school faculty members can also organize competitions that build team spirit and can recognize many people for different contributions to the events. Such team-building exercises are another way to enliven the school culture. Some examples are listed in the following section on nonacademic competitions.
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Nonacademic competitions