Nature / Writing

Saturday May 28, 2011 Now that my weekend round-up of opportunities open to Ontario kids and teens has been turned into a separate page listing current youth opportunities , I thought I'd try something a little different and take a quick look at some amazing kids, teens, and young adults I've read about recently: Felix Finkbeiner, Environmentalist, Activist and Author, Age 13 From Pöcking, Bavaria, Germany Reading The Telegraph (UK) online last month, I learned about " The 13-year-old who has the world planting trees ". At the age of 9, Felix Finkbeiner turned a simple school presentation into a plan to see one million trees planted in his home country of Germany. Now age 13, Felix recently met that goal, is the author of the book Baum für Baum (Tree by Tree) , and is expanding his campaign worldwide with a global call to "Stop talking. Start planting". • Visit www.plant-for-the-planet.org , or listen to Felix speak to UN delegates in New York in...

Sunday May 22, 2011 Happy Victoria Day Weekend all! So after a few months of doing weekly round-ups of contests and such that are open to Ontario kids and teens, I've decided to try something a little different. The Problem With The Old Set-Up If you've been reading the blog posts you know that I would usually outline one or two newly-found contests or competitions, then include a list of previously highlighted youth opportunities sorted by deadline date. But the list was getting unwieldy, and I can't imagine it was terribly useful for anyone who'd missed the original explanation of each contest. Now All Youth Opportunities Are On One Page To try to remedy this, I've moved the listings to their own page. Now previously mentioned opportunities PLUS any new things I find will be collected together on the Youth Opportunities page (which you can also get to using the tab above). To make things easier for anyone who visits the page frequently, I'll be ...

Sunday May 15, 2011 [UPDATE: It may be useful to browse these old listings as many programs are annual, but for more current contests and competitions, head to the Youth Opportunities page .] Every weekend I post about current youth opportunities that are open to submissions from Ontario residents, which includes many contests and competitions open to youth across Canada and the US. Please note I'm not attesting to the legitimacy or quality of anything listed here - read the fine print carefully and make your own judgement call, especially if a submission fee or creative rights are involved! For those in the Toronto area, the 50th Canada-Wide Science Fair is on this week and is open to the public on Friday from 9am until noon. Unfortunately I can't be there on Friday morning, but if you want to have a look at what young minds from across the country had on display this year, the fair is at the Newnham Campus of Seneca College. Check cwsf.youthscience.ca for more detai...

Sunday May 8, 2011 [UPDATE: It may be useful to browse these old listings as many programs are annual, but for more current contests and competitions, head to the Youth Opportunities page .] Every weekend I post about current youth opportunities that are open to submissions from Ontario residents, which includes many contests and competitions open to youth across Canada and the US. Please note I'm not attesting to the legitimacy or quality of anything listed here - read the fine print carefully and make your own judgement call, especially if a submission fee or creative rights are involved! After a bit of a drought during the past few updates, this week I've got a solid bunch of opportunities for Canadian kids and teens. Several of them have deadlines this month (one's even next week!) so check dates carefully if something catches your eye. Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there, and happy Sunday to everyone else! Write the Wrong 2011 - National High ...

Sunday May 1, 2011 Well, there it is: I admit, it wasn't the best case scenario for a Script Frenzy "win" - one of these years I still want to start the month of April with only an idea and end it with a complete first draft of a full-length stage, screen or radio play. But for now, I'll take this - the final few pages of a previous work in progress, 70+ pages of trial and error for a one act play that will be whittled down quite a bit, and 20+ working-it-out-on-the-page pages of a new idea. And yes, it was down to the wire. I think I started at 8am Saturday morning with over 60 pages to go, and I uploaded for verification at 11:56pm. I'm sure some of what I wrote in that time - okay, a lot of what I wrote in that time - won't be worth keeping.  But I can deal with that. Now, if only I wrote that fast every day... Congrats to everyone else who took part, and thanks to the Script Frenzy people for hosting the party!  (Now I shall go thank the...

Sunday May 1, 2011 [UPDATE: It may be useful to browse these old listings as many programs are annual, but for more current contests and competitions, head to the Youth Opportunities page .] Every weekend I post about current youth opportunities that are open to submissions from Ontario residents, which includes many contests and competitions open to youth across Canada and the US. Please note I'm not attesting to the legitimacy or quality of anything listed here - read the fine print carefully and make your own judgement call, especially if a submission fee or creative rights are involved! Well, I'm officially changing the Youth Opportunities info on the sidebar to say that I post on "weekends" since between last week and this week the Saturday thing clearly isn't always happening (at least this week I have a good excuse - Script Frenzy, which I'll write more about shortly). Earlier this month I wrote about the Student Vote program and how much I lo...