Is it possible to find out who is sponsoring the State tournament?  I don't
want to sound cynical, but the year my team did "Food factor" the state
tournament was sponsored by a food packaging company, and only teams whose
research project related to packaging made it to the awards and thus moved
on Our team did a food factor safety form the farm aspect- the kids worked
on curing white nose fungus in bats, which are animals that eat 300 tons of
insects and keep 53 billion dollars worth of pesticides off our food,
making it safer. The trail from safe farming practices to safe food was a
bridge too far for the judges at state.  My kids were disappointed by the
questions of the judges. It was the ten year who at our team round up
suggested we figure out who was a sponsor if we wanted to move on at state
:)

On Sat, Jul 11, 2015 at 8:46 PM, Amy [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> Hello...I'm just curious if there's any of the teams that have been
> through numerous challenges might have some thought on this year's
> challenge. The challenge teasers say - "From collection, to sorting, to
> smart production and reuse, there is more to your trash than meets the
> eye".
>
> This seems to preclude teams for making things that would educate people
> to stop using certain products - water bottles, single-use bags, balloons,
> etc. For example, if a team wanted to design an app that taught kids about
> how a certain project is affecting the environment or encouraging them to
> make better choices, etc, this doesn't seem like it would fit into the
> above teaser. But this seems to be one of the most important ways we reduce
> some forms of trash, through education.
>
> So I was just wondering what people thought? I know the challenge doesn't
> come out for another month and a half and it's all just guessing and no one
> really knows, but our team has been working on their research during the
> summer and really want to do something educational, but I hate to let them
> get too far in that direction if it's going to be something not within the
> realm of the challenge.   They're really only doing research right
> now...not working on their solution...but they keep trying to decide on one
> solution that they really like.  So I was just wondering.  I would really
> appreciate any thoughts!
>
> Thanks much!
> Amy Nichols
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