The Waksman Challenge

Supported by:

How It Works

The Research Problem
A group of scientists from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, will devise three or four research problems during the academic year. Each problem will be in the area of bioinformatics or structural biology. The problem will be posted on the Waksman Challenge Web Site.

Who Should Participate
Students will need to be familiar with the basic concepts of molecular biology and have access to the Internet. We anticipate that students in introductory high school level biology classes that have covered the fundamentals of molecular biology as well as more advanced high school students will profit from participation in the Challenge. Students from participating high schools working singly or in groups (more than one group may be formed at a given school, and the size of any group may vary up to six) should try to solve the problem using their ingenuity and the databases and software resources of the Internet. Groups within a school and from different schools are encouraged to discuss the question with each other.

Teacher Information
This is a student activity and teachers should encourage students and coach them, but NOT carry out the project themselves.

Submitting a Response
We suggest that participants write out your team's response to the Challenge using a word processing program. If a group wishes to include graphics, these should be in ".jpg" or ".gif" form only. Up to three graphics will be accepted per each Challenge response submitted.

When your team is ready to submit a response, you should register by filling in the Waksman Challenge Submission Form. Copy the text of your Challenge response and paste it into the text box. Graphics should be added at this time. Only one response per team is allowed. Be careful: After submission, you won't be able to correct or alter your response.

Participants should provide appropriate references for the information provided in their response.

Please do NOT submit any responses by mail, email, or phone. Only responses submitted via the submission form on our website will be accepted. All responses will be acknowledged. All participating groups will be awarded a certificate.

Judging:
Student responses will be read by a committee of scientists from Rutgers University. The student groups that are judged to have submitted the best answers on the basis of originality, accuracy, thoughtfulness, organization, and thoroughness will be awarded special recognition.

Guide to Bioinformatics Resources:
The Waksman Web site also features a guide to WWW bioinformatics resources for high school students, which will provide useful hints for solving the problems posed in the Challenge. This resource can be found at the Internet Resources Area

If you have questions or comments or want further information, send E-mail to: coletta@waksman.rutgers.edu