Competition rules

Competition theme
The competition theme covers three topics:

• efficient use of energy
• better use of materials and products to save energy
• renewable energy solutions as a key to improving the future.

Competition audience
Secondary school students can submit entries to the competition, according to their age group, as follows:

• 12 years old and under
• 13-14 years old
• 15-16 years old
• 17-18+

All students participating in the competition must be secondary school students.

Entry format
The entry shall consist of three elements: a poster, a related slogan and a text describing the poster and its slogan. The poster may be a drawing, collage, painting or photo converted into a digital format using either a scanner or a digital camera. Both the slogan and the text description must be in one of the following languages: English, French or German.

A submission form is available to all participants to send (upload) their entry to the competition website.

Eligibility
All schools and organisations in charge of extra-curricular school activities can encourage their students to submit entries to the competition website. The competition is open to schools based in the European Union Member States, Acceding, Candidate and EFTA Countries. We encourage teachers of sciences, languages, social sciences, art, and ICT to integrate the competition into their teaching plans.

Only the entries supported by a school or an organisation in charge of extra-curricular school activities will be taken into account, meaning that the entries must result from a classroom activity which is supervised and assisted by a teacher or by a group of teachers.

There is no limit to the number of entries that may be sent by a school.

Competition deadline
Deadline for entries is mid-March 2007.

All entrants should keep the original version of their work. Finalists will be invited to send their original work to Brussels for an exhibition.

The teachers will judge the entries according to three main criteria:

• Theme relevance: choosing the appropriate subject(s) to suit to the competition theme (the efficient use of energy, better use of materials to save energy, and envisaging renewable energy solutions as a key of tomorrow’s world); the poster composition (the visual component of the entry) may strike a balance between the artistic and the scientific elements.
• Aesthetics: combining relevant artistic techniques and methods to design an attractive artwork, in order to convey a message which shall be enhanced by both slogan and text description.
• Originality: the entry should be an innovative piece of work.

The decision of the judges is final, and no discussion will be entered in relation to their decision.

All participants must comply with European copyright laws. Entries may not contain statements, facts, information or quotation that may denigrate or harm any person or group of people.

Entries may not contain statements, facts, information or quotations that may encourage persecution of people on the grounds of race, opinion, nationality, sex, profession or other persuasion, nor may entries encourage crime or the breaking of laws.