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Humans have long felt a connection with the Red Planet. The Romans named the planet after their god of war. More recently, popular culture imagined strange Martians building canals - and even invading Earth. Lately, Mars is looking like humanity's new frontier.

Will humans live on Mars someday?

In "In a Dome in Hawaii, a Mission to Mars" Kenneth Chang writes:

On the way to Mars, Neil Scheibelhut stopped by Walmart for mouthwash and dental floss. "We're picking up some last-minute things," he said via cellphone last Wednesday afternoon from the store.

Mr. Scheibelhut is not actually an astronaut leaving the earth. But three hours later, he and five other people stepped into a dome-shaped building on a Hawaiian volcano where they will live for the next eight months, mimicking a stay on the surface of Mars.

This is part of a NASA-financed study, the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation, or Hi-Seas for short. The goal is to examine how well a small group of people, isolated from civilization, can get along and work together.

When astronauts finally head toward Mars years from now - NASA has penciled the 2030s - it will be a long and lonely journey: about six months to Mars, 500 days on the planet, and then another six months home.

Students: Read the entire article, then tell us ...

- Will humans live on Mars someday? Do you think people will ever colonize the Red Planet - for example, if Earth becomes too crowded?

- How soon do you think astronauts will land on Mars? For example, NASA has plans to send a human mission to Mars in the 2030s. Do you think that will happen?

- Do you think ordinary people will ever make interplanetary space trips, the way people take intercontinental plane rides today?

- Do you think life exists, or has ever existed, somewhere besides Earth, such as on Mars?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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Humans have long felt a connection with the Red Planet. The Romans named the planet after their god of war. More recently, popular culture imagined strange Martians building canals - and even invading Earth. Lately, Mars is looking like humanity's new frontier. Will humans live on Mars someday?

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With potentially hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe, and with each of those galaxies housing billions of stars, do you think life exists - or has ever existed - somewhere besides Earth?

In "Mars Could Have Supported Life Long Ago, NASA Says," Kenneth Chang writes about scientists' belief that life could have existed on Mars three billion years ago - and might even exist today underneath the planet's surface.

Several billion years ago, Mars may well have been a pleasant place for tiny microbes to live, with plenty of water as well as minerals that could have served as food, NASA scientists said Tuesday at a news conference on the latest findings from their Mars rover. But they have yet to find signs that actual microbes did live in that oasis.

"We have found a habitable environment that is so benign and supportive of life that probably if this water was around and you had been on the planet, you would have been able to drink it," said John P. Grotzinger, the California Institute of Technology geology professor who is the principal investigator for the NASA mission.

In drilling into its first rock, a fine-grained mudstone, the scientists said, the rover Curiosity - a self-contained science laboratory about the size of a Mini Cooper - sent back to Earth convincing evidence that Mars was once awash in water.

Plus, the Curiosity scientists identified elements in the rocks - sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and carbon - that are some of the key ingredients of life, as well as minerals, like sulfates and sulfides, that primitive microbes could eat for food. Dr. Grotzinger said these minerals are "effectively like batteries" and can provide an energy source for life.

Students: Tell us...

Do you think life exists - or has ever existed - somewhere besides Earth?

Do you think extraterrestrial life forms are more likely to be primitive microbes, or some kind of advanced organisms - maybe even with a consciousness and emotions, like humans?

What do you imagine extraterrestrial life might look like? Does it have humanoid features, like heads, torsos and limbs, like we typically see in popular movies? Or do you imagine something completely different?

If you believe that extraterrestrial life exists somewhere in the universe, do you think we'll ever find it? Will "it" find us? Or, is the universe simply too huge?

Does the idea that life might exist on other planets excite you? Scare you? Why?

NOTE: Students, please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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Do You Think Life Exists - or Has Ever Existed - Somewhere Besides Earth?

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With potentially hundreds of billions of galaxies in the universe, and with each of those galaxies housing billions of stars, do you think life exists - or has ever existed - somewhere besides Earth?

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Questions about issues in the news for students 13 and older.

Stephen Hawking believes that alien life very likely exists - and that any contact with aliens would be "risky" because they would probably consider Earth as a conquest. Do you think intelligent life exists on other planets? Do you welcome or fear an alien invasion?
This week's post by Opinionator blog contributor Robert Wright is about physicist Stephen Hawking's recent comments that any intelligent extraterrestrials out there may pose a threat to life on Earth. Wright mused:

Doesn't discerning the motivations of aliens who show no sign of existing amount to the most untethered thought experiment ever?

Not necessarily. Rather than build a whole thought experiment de novo, we can just look around - because, in a sense, we are the thought experiment. We're an example of an intelligent species (as species go, I mean) that is a century or two away from the technological capacity to voyage beyond its solar system and, upon finding civilizations that are less advanced, having its way with them. Which way would that way be?

Students: Tell us what you think about life in the galaxy and elsewhere in the universe. Do you think intelligent life exists on other planets? Do you think alien visitors to Earth would probably come as friendly explorers or threatening conquerors?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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Do You Believe in Intelligent Alien Life?

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Questions about issues in the news for students 13 and older. Stephen Hawking believes that alien life very likely exists - and that any contact with aliens would be "risky" because they would probably consider Earth as a conquest. Do you think intelligent life exists on other planets?

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States around the country are trying to better assess how teachers are performing in classrooms. They are primarily using standardized test scores and observations by administrators. But shouldn't students be included in the conservation too? After all, aren't they the ones who spend the most time with their teachers?

Should students be able to grade their teachers?

In the article "Grading Teachers, With Data From Class," Farhad Manjoo writes about how a tech start-up called Panorama Education is using student questionnaires to evaluate how teachers are doing.

Halfway through the last school year, Leila Campbell, a young humanities teacher at a charter high school in Oakland, Calif., received the results from a recent survey of her students.

On most measures, Ms. Campbell and her fellow teachers at the Aspire Lionel Wilson Preparatory Academy were scoring at or above the average for Aspire, a charter system that runs more than a dozen schools in California and Tennessee.

But the survey, conducted by a tech start-up called Panorama Education, also indicated that her students did not believe she was connecting with them. Ninety-six percent of the students at Lionel Wilson are Hispanic, and 92 percent receive school lunch assistance.

"It's a very different population from where I grew up," Ms. Campbell, who is white, said in a recent interview in her classroom. "I wasn't scoring where I wanted to with questions like 'I feel comfortable asking my teacher for help' or 'My teacher really cares about me.' I was below average, and I don't want to be below average."

Students: Read the entire article, then tell us ...

- Should students be able to grade their teachers? Can students offer insights and observations about teachers that school administrators and teachers themselves might otherwise miss?

- Should student questionnaires, like the ones described in the article, be used by districts and administrators to help improve the quality of teaching at schools?

- Does your school ever ask students to give feedback on teaching or classes? Would you want your school to ask for your opinion? Why?

- Do you think most students would be fair and honest when grading their teachers?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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Should Students Be Able to Grade Their Teachers?

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States around the country are trying to better assess how teachers are performing in classrooms. They are primarily using standardized test scores and observations by administrators. But shouldn't students be included in the conservation too? After all, aren't they the ones who spend the most time with their teachers?

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Do Violent Video Games Make People More Violent in Real Life?

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Do you ever play violent video games? Do your friends?

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Questions about issues in the news for students 13 and older.
Players compete in huge arenas, cheered on by thousands of screaming fans, with millions of dollars in prize money at stake. Top competitors must endure grueling training regimens, but also enjoy soaring salaries and corporate endorsement deals. We're not talking about basketball or football here, but the elite world of professional gaming. Isn't it time we called video games a sport?

In " Grooming the Champions of the Keyboard," Alan Feuer writes about professional video game players who have joined forces in a team.

On a picture-perfect East Bay afternoon - 75 and a clear blue sky - a few top players for the Evil Geniuses were holed up in the Lair.

Preparing for a qualifying match, a StarCraft prodigy named HuK was sitting in one of the gaming rooms, communing with his monitor and limbering his fingers on a keyboard. Down the hallway, his teammate DeMusliM was running through a replay of his own last match and working on his manual dexterity, swirling a pair of worry balls in his hand.

It was 3 p.m. and the California sunlight was beating at the windows, but the Lair's front shutters were drawn tight, leaving the gamers to focus in the darkness on their training, which meant playing video games from dawn to dusk each day, or from dusk to dawn each night. Their physical needs had been seen to: the kitchen refrigerator was stocked with bagels, the living room cooler with caffeinated sports drinks. At their flashing terminals, the four young men were immersed enough in work that they hardly noticed the two maids feather-dusting everything around them - and occasionally poking a vacuum cleaner between their legs.

Like sports stars everywhere, professional-level video gamers need a place to practice, and for the high-tech athletes of the Evil Geniuses - the Yankees of the video gaming world - that place is the Lair, a sock-strewn tract house on an ordinary side street in this breezy island city east of San Francisco. With its redundant Internet connections and eight-to-a-toilet dormitory rooms, the Lair is a clubhouse and a crash pad: a residential exercise space where digital Derek Jeters can roll out of bed and stumble downstairs for workouts in the gym.

Students: Tell us ...

Should video games be considered a sport?

What is the essence of a sport? Is it the competition? The physical activity? The complex skill level required?

Does it matter if we call video gaming a sport? Does the term "sport" or "e-sport" validate the activity in some way, beyond just a hobby or form of entertainment? Or is the debate trivial?

Do you play video games? Which ones? Would you want to be a professional gamer?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

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Should Video Games Be Considered a Sport?

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Questions about issues in the news for students 13 and older. Players compete in huge arenas, cheered on by thousands of screaming fans, with millions of dollars in prize money at stake. Top competitors must endure grueling training regimens, but also enjoy soaring salaries and corporate endorsement deals.

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Non-binary, intersex, neutrois, androgyne, agender, gender questioning, gender fluid, gender variant, genderqueer: these are among the 50 possibilities and permutations of gender identification Facebook will now include in a drop-down menu for people who feel the binary choices "male" and "female" aren't enough.

What do you think? Do we need new ways to identify gender and sexuality differences, whether on Facebook or on official forms like driver's licenses and passports?

In a 2013 article, "Generation LGBTQIA," Michael Schulman wrote:

If the gay-rights movement today seems to revolve around same-sex marriage, this generation is seeking something more radical: an upending of gender roles beyond the binary of male/female. The core question isn't whom they love, but who they are - that is, identity as distinct from sexual orientation.

But what to call this movement? Whereas "gay and lesbian" was once used to lump together various sexual minorities - and more recently "L.G.B.T." to include bisexual and transgender - the new vanguard wants a broader, more inclusive abbreviation. "Youth today do not define themselves on the spectrum of L.G.B.T.," said Shane Windmeyer, a founder of Campus Pride, a national student advocacy group based in Charlotte, N.C.

Part of the solution has been to add more letters, and in recent years the post-post-post-gay-rights banner has gotten significantly longer, some might say unwieldy. The emerging rubric is "L.G.B.T.Q.I.A.," which stands for different things, depending on whom you ask.

"Q" can mean "questioning" or "queer," an umbrella term itself, formerly derogatory before it was appropriated by gay activists in the 1990s. "I" is for "intersex," someone whose anatomy is not exclusively male or female. And "A" stands for "ally" (a friend of the cause) or "asexual," characterized by the absence of sexual attraction.

In a recent article, "Who Are You on Facebook Now?," Aimee Lee Ball writes:

On his driver's license and passport, at his doctor's office and insurance company, for online dating and social media, and on every application or document that requires checking a box for gender, 24-year-old Ryley Pogensky is a "male." But to his friends on Facebook, he is now a "trans man."

Facebook recently announced that it would offer users 50 different possibilities and permutations of gender identification. In the gender category under "Basic Information," the drop-down box now includes such "custom" choices as non-binary, intersex, neutrois, androgyne, agender, gender questioning, gender fluid, gender variant, genderqueer and neither.

The gender project was developed at a "hackathon" - an all-night coding fest at Facebook's headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. - with input from Glaad in New York. "Over the years, we've seen a lot of requests for additional terms," said Allison Palmer, former vice president for campaigns and programs at Glaad. "It speaks to how important Facebook is in people's lives. Having only two options was a big problem."

Some of the terms are not found in standard dictionaries. "Cisgender" is officially defined as someone who identifies with his or her societally recognized sex, but it has come to have a more L.G.B.T.-supportive subtext: I'm O.K. with what it says on my birth certificate, but I realize that's not true for everyone.

"Other people might see one of these terms and think it's a typo," said Sasha Kolodkin, a 19-year-old student at Purchase College in New York, who chose to be identified as a gender nonconforming transsexual female. "It's sort of a secret language that not everyone will understand. I was born male and feel that I should have been female. But use of the words 'male' and 'female' is very confining. When you have to choose between the two, the complexities of your identity are lost. It's like looking at a painting in black and white instead of color."

Students: Read both of the articles, then tell us ...

- Is this a new idea for you, or have you encountered words like "cisgender" and "intersex" and heard the arguments for them before? What is your reaction to what you read?

- Do you agree with people like Sasha Kolodkin who say that "the complexities of your identity are lost" for some who must choose between only "male" or "female" as gender identifiers?

- Do you know, or have you read or heard about, anyone who is struggling with this issue? What light do these articles shed on that struggle for you? What questions do the articles raise?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment below. Please use only your first name. For privacy policy reasons, we will not publish student comments that include a last name.

NOTE: We ask that adults respect the intent of the Student Opinion question and refrain from posting here. There are many other places on NYTimes.com for adults to post, while this is the only place that explicitly invites the voices of young people. Please note our commenting guidelines.

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Do We Need New Ways to Identify Gender and Sexuality?

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Non-binary, intersex, neutrois, androgyne, agender, gender questioning, gender fluid, gender variant, genderqueer: these are among the 50 possibilities and permutations of gender identification Facebook will now include in a drop-down menu for people who feel the binary choices "male" and "female" aren't enough. What do you think?

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Liberals And Conservatives Fight Labels And Stereotypes

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Library Guides: Evaluating resources: Home

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Library Guides: Evaluating resources: Home

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If so, as the universe grows, it will expand faster and faster and run away from itself. Eventually other galaxies would be flying away so fast that we couldn't see them. The universe would become dark and cold. The cosmologist Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State once described this as "the worst possible universe."

If on the other hand, some previously unsuspected force field is tinkering with the galaxies and space-time, the effect could shut off or even reverse over the eons.

Or maybe we just don't understand gravity.

Dark energy, said Frank Wilczek, a Nobel laureate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, "is the most mysterious fact in all of physical science, the fact with the greatest potential to rock the foundations."

The astronomers who made this discovery were using the exploding stars known as Type 1a supernovae as cosmic distance markers to track the expansion rate of the universe.

Since then, other tools have emerged by which astronomers can also gauge dark energy by how it retards the growth of galaxies and other structures in the universe.

Way back in 1999, Saul Perlmutter of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, one of dark energy's discoverers, proposed a space mission known as SNAP (Supernova Acceleration Probe) to do just that.

In 2008, NASA and the Energy Department budgeted $600 million, not including launching costs, for a mission and the call went out for proposals. But NASA and the Energy Department found it hard to collaborate and a working group of dark-energy scientists could not come up with a design that would fit in the budget.

In 2010, a committee of the National Academy of Sciences cobbled together several competing proposals that would do the trick. Paul Schechter, an M.I.T. astronomer involved in the work called it Wfirst, for Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope. The acronym had a double meaning: "W" is the name for a crucial parameter that measures the virulence of dark energy. But the telescope would also search for exoplanets - planets beyond our solar system.

In its report, "New Worlds, New Horizons," the committee gave this mission the highest priority in space science for the next decade.

But NASA would have no money to start on this project until it finished building the James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the vaunted Hubble Space Telescope. Shortly after the academy's deliberations, the space agency admitted that the Webb project had been mismanaged. The telescope, which had been set for a 2014 launching, would require at least another $1.6 billion and several more years to finish. The Webb will search out the first stars and galaxies to have formed in the universe, but is not designed for dark energy. It is now on course to be launched next year.

Wfirst would have to wait.

To take up the slack until 2025 - or whenever the American mission can finally fly - the space agency bought a share in a European dark-energy mission known as Euclid, now scheduled to launch in 2021. But Euclid is not as comprehensive as Wfirst would be; it will not use supernovas, for example.

The story took another dramatic twist in June 2012, capturing headlines when the National Reconnaissance Office, which operates spy satellites, offered NASA a leftover telescope, essentially a close relative of the Hubble, that had been designed to look down instead of up.

It had a wide field of view, which could enable inspecting large areas of the heavens for supernovae.

Its primary mirror - like the Hubble 94 inches in diameter - is twice as big as the one that was being contemplated for Wfirst, giving it four times the light-gathering power and a deep reach into the cosmos.

The gift would save them the cost of fashioning a whole new telescope, but it was not without strings. As several astronomers pointed out, using a bigger telescope would mean a bigger, more expensive camera and more complicated back-end optics would have to be built. Nevertheless, the Academy bought into the idea.

Lately another controversial element has been added to the mission, a coronagraph, which could be used to block the light from a star so that faint planets near them can be discerned.

Last summer an independent review panel appointed by NASA and led by Fiona Harrison, a professor at the California Institute of Technology, endorsed the mission's basic science goals and methodology while cautioning against mission creep that could cause its costs to balloon.

The ball is now in Congress's court.

Michael Turner, a cosmologist at the University of Chicago, said, "While one never wants to hear that someone important has recommended cancellation of your favorite project, I believe that like last year, Congress will be doing the budget writing. I hope and believe that Congress will be wiser."

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national aeronautics and space administration

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Astronomers' Dark Energy Hopes Fade to Gray

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If so, as the universe grows, it will expand faster and faster and run away from itself. Eventually other galaxies would be flying away so fast that we couldn't see them. The universe would become dark and cold. The cosmologist Lawrence Krauss of Arizona State once described this as "the worst possible universe."

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Columnist Editorial

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NASA's $25.2 billion budget for fiscal year 2021 was about a 12% increase over FY 2020. Every dollar of NASA's budget has a bigger impact on the U.S. economy. It spurs technological advancements that contribute to our everyday lives. NASA partners with multiple private industries. Its research has led to many products and services that go well beyond the scope of space exploration.

Key Takeaways

NASA's Focus

NASA's top priority is to return American astronauts to the Moon by 2024. It will be the first time a woman has landed on the moon. The agency plans to build a sustainable presence by 2028. It will be used as a launchpad to explore Mars.

The budget includes $3.4 billion to develop landing systems. Another $700 million goes to supporting lunar surface activities. NASA will direct $233 million for robotic precursor missions to Mars.

The U.S. government funds NASA using federal revenue from income, corporate, and other taxes. The budget also provides incentives for private businesses to partner with the government on space station operations, deep-space exploration, and small satellite groups. NASA has funded 23 research concepts with $7 million to further space technologies.

How NASA Impacts the Economy

A report by the Space Foundation estimated that activities related to space contributed $180 billion to the economy in 2005-more than eight times the department's own budget. More than 60% of this came from commercial goods and services created by companies related to space technology. The space economy includes commercial space products and services, commercial infrastructure, and support industries. It also counts aerospace budgets in private companies.

The space economy also includes eight U.S. government space budgets outside of NASA:

Department of Defense

National Reconnaissance Office

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Department of Energy

Federal Aviation Administration

National Science Foundation

Federal Communications Commission

United States Geological Survey

How NASA Impacts Technology

NASA research leads to many of the goods and services we take for granted every day, such as weather and communication satellites. Such technology has led specifically to things like GPS devices, based on technology developed by the Air Force for military applications. Other technologies developed for exploring space are now used to increase crop yields or search for good fishing regions.

A 2002 study by Professor H.R. Hertzfeld of George Washington University observed a significant return to companies that work with NASA on its research contracts. These companies can commercialize the products developed and market them. The 15 companies studied received $1.5 billion in benefits from a NASA research and development investment of $64 million.

Such benefits trickle down to everyday life. From 1976 through 2019, NASA has created more than 2,000 inventions that later became products or services. These include kidney dialysis machines, CAT scanners, and even freeze-dried food.

Compare NASA's Budget to Other Departments

NASA receives 0.5% of the $4.8 trillion FY 2021 federal budget. The Department of Defense, by comparison, has a $636.4 billion budget, or 13% of the total.

Six other departments also receive more funding than NASA:

Department of Health and Human Services: $96.4 billion

Department of Veterans Affairs: $105 billion

Department of Education: $66.6 billion

Department of Homeland Security: $49.7 billion

Department of Housing and Urban Development: $47.9 billion

Department of State: $44.1 billion

Budget History Since FY 1998

NASA's budget expanded by more than 85% from 1998 through 2021. In some years, Congress appropriated more money for it than the president requested. NASA's budget was cut slightly during the 2008 financial crisis and during sequestration. A look at the year-by-year appropriations:

FY 2021: $25.2 billion requested by the Trump administration

FY 2020: $22.6 enacted, $23 billion requested by Trump

FY 2019: $21.5 billion, Trump requested $19.5 billion, Congress allocated more

FY 2018: $19.5 billion, Trump requested $19.1 billion

FY 2017: $19.2 billion, Obama requested $18.3 billion

FY 2016: $19.3 billion, Obama requested $18.5 billion.

FY 2015: $18.0 billion

FY 2014: $17.6 billion

FY 2013: $16.9 billion, Obama requested $17.7 billion, all programs were cut to comply with sequestration

FY 2012: $17.8 billion, Obama requested $18.7 billion

FY 2011: $18.4 billion, Obama requested $19 billion

FY 2010: $18.7 billion

FY 2009: $18.8 billion, President George W. Bush requested $17.6 billion, an additional $1 billion came from American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) funding

FY 2008: $17.1 billion, Bush requested $17.3 billion, Congress cut programs in response to the financial crisis

FY 2007: $16.2 billion, Bush requested $16.8 billion

FY 2006: $16.3 billion

FY 2005: $16.1 billion

FY 2004: $15.4 billion

FY 2003: $15.3 billion

FY 2002: $14.8 billion

FY 2001: $14.3 billion

FY 2000: $13.6 billion

FY 1999: $13.7 billion

FY 1998: $13.6 billion

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Who controls NASA's budget?

How much of the federal budget goes to NASA?

Why was NASA created?

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How $1 Spent on NASA Adds $8 to the Economy

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NASA's $25.2 billion budget for fiscal year 2021 was about a 12% increase over FY 2020. Every dollar of NASA's budget has a bigger impact on the U.S. economy. It spurs technological advancements that contribute to our everyday lives. NASA partners with multiple private industries.

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Student Editorial

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Elon Musk is the billionaire founder of the SpaceX rocket company. For years, he has been talking about going to Mars. Now, he says has a plan for spacecraft that would take 100 passengers to the planet.

Would you like to visit Mars? Would you like to live there permanently and be a part of what Mr. Musk hopes will someday become a self-sustaining Mars civilization? What do you imagine that would be like?

After you have commented, watch the related video and read the related article to learn more about Mr. Musk's plans.
Find many more ways to use our new Picture Prompt feature in this lesson plan.

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Elon Musk is the billionaire founder of the SpaceX rocket company. For years, he has been talking about going to Mars. Now, he says has a plan for spacecraft that would take 100 passengers to the planet. Would you like to visit Mars?

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Contests

One of this year's winners wrote about school lockdown drills. Related Article Credit... Alec Soth/Magnum, for The New York Times

Update | Read the work of _________ this year's 10 winners here and this year's runners-up here.
For the past four years we've invited students to write short editorials about issues they care about, and each year thousands take up the challenge.

Students often start with thoughtful questions from their own lives: Why is my school's athletic program better funded than its music program? Why do we hide in the corner of our classroom during active shooter drills? Why don't my classmates stand during the Pledge of Allegiance? And they develop sophisticated, sincere and well researched answers in response.

Students look at the nation's and world's problems and hunt for solutions - to improve the plight of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in China, for example, or to reduce recidivism rates for U.S. prisons.

We really like this contest because it asks students to look closely at their world and find something, large or small, they want to change. So, if you don't like being last in line all the time because your surname starts with "Z," then take a stand. If you want more characters in books and movies to be more like you, then write about it. If you want society to be less wasteful or more tolerant, then tell the world. Change starts with noticing, thinking critically, and starting meaningful conversations - and that's what these students have done in their editorials.

But winning this contest? It's no easy task being selected as a winner out of 7,895 entries, a record. How do you make your writing stand out from the piles of other editorials submitted to our contest - especially when you have no more than 450 words to get your point across?

Here's one way: Start strong. Grab our attention in the first few sentences, but don't take too long to state your argument.

Here's another: Pick a fresh topic, or a new angle on a popular topic, and be very clear about what you are arguing. Often when students narrow in on a specific concern, their editorial becomes more persuasive.

What else? Write with an original, confident voice and avoid formulaic language and structure. And if appropriate, acknowledge, and deftly dispatch, counterarguments.

Below, we list 10 winners, 15 runners-up and 45 honorable mentions. We also include a PDF of all the finalists, including 58 who made the cut to the third round of judging, but didn't quite reach the winner's circle.

Starting May 22, we will be publishing one of the Top 10 essays each weekday in posts that we hope you will spread on social media, hang on school bulletin boards and perhaps even use as "mentor texts" for next year's contest.

Thank you for participating - and we hope you'll take part in our Summer Reading Contest, starting June 16.

_________

Each category below lists our favorites in alphabetical order by title. Where titles were missing, we came up with our own.
Top 10 Winners
" A Psychedelic Cure?" by Reagan Briere, age 16
" In Nothing We Trust" by Francesca Kelley, age 18
" Leave the Citizens to Their TV Shows" by Yijia Hu, age 17
" Losing the Internet" by David Scharts, age 15
" Reform the Prison, Then the Prisoner" by Katherine Leonard, age 16
" Stopping Bullets With Locked Doors and Silence Is Already Pulling the Trigger" by Daina Kalnina, age 15
" The Anguish of the Rich" by Yiqi Wang, age 17
" The Asian Misnomer: What the Affirmative Action Debate Misses" by Matteo Wong, age 16
" The Collateral Damage of Defending Democracy" by Sarah Heiland, age 18
" The Missing Anthropological Exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History " by Alec Farber, age 16
_________ Runners-Up
"America First" by Safa Saleh, age 17
"America? More Like Ameri-Can't Vote" by Gianni Carcagno, age 17
"Climate Literacy: A Critical Step Toward Climate Stability" by Ella Shriner, age 14 and Hannah Witscher, age 15
"Cultural Appropriation: A Measure of Empathy" by James Chang, age 16
"Discourse Is Democracy: Allowing Uncensored Speech on College Campuses" by Abigail Hogan, age 17
"Drone Warfare: The Failing Fight Against the Modern Hydra" by Michael Levinger, age 16
"Generation Code Red" by Grace Scullion, age 16
"Humane Human Zoo?" by Ella Ward, age 15
"Paper or Plastic? How About a Paper ON Plastic!" by Melody Markert, age 17
"The Future Disintegration of American Democracy Through Athletics" by Julianne Yu, age 16
"The Case for Teaching News Literacy" by Mary Hannah Grier, age 17
"The Unspoken Alphabet Problem" by Stephanie Zhang, age 14
"The 'War on Drugs' Will Never Work; Legalization Will" by Kristina Vakhman, age 18
"There Is No Happily Ever After Without Once Upon a Time" by Bridget O'Leary, age 17
"When Will This Class Be Useful?" by Casey Stark, age 15
_________ Honorable Mentions
"#WorldChanger" by Joyce Zhou, age 17
"A Case for Impassiveness" by Lea Marchl, age 16
"A Scoop in the Right Direction" by Emma S., age 18
"AP Tests Don't Leave Enough Room for the Human Side of History" by Tom Malmgren, age 16
"Are My Shoulders Distracting You?" by Mairi Alice Dun, age 17
"Autism: Educated and Extraordinary" by Isabella Zhang, age 17
"Bittersweet" by Rena Rachlin, age 15 "Child Labor in the U.S. Today" by Jasmine Campos, age 16 and Charlotte Principal, age 16
"China Needs Silver Lining" by Wangchen Zhou, age 17
"Colleges Should Abandon Race-Based Affirmative Action to Achieve True Diversity" by Eric Davis, age 18
"Embrace the Mess" by Chi Yu, age 14
"Fast Fashion Is Destroying Our World" by Melissa Wang, age 17
"Food Stamps Need a Change" by Patrick Meara, age 17
"Governor Cuomo Frees the Plastic Bagss" by Jiayan Chen, age 17
"Help Wanted: Moderate Politicians" by Ireland Degges, age 17
"High School Should Not Just Be About Sports" by Swathi Kella, age 16
"How Far Can Post-Truth Democracy Take Us?" by Jiahe Yang, age 18
"How to Revitalize the Public Education System" by Dhara Yu, age 18
"Last Man Standing" by Kathryn Porter, age 16
"Leave Me Alone" by Celia Silver, age 17
"More Than a Morning Kick" by Emma Cary, age 16
"Multiple Choice: Not Multiple Enough" by Yi-Mei Templeman, age 17
"Picking Cotton: An Immigrant's Perspective" by Allan Njomo, age 16
"Post-Democracy" by Nadav Ziv, age 17
"Should Juvenile Offenders Receive Life Sentences Without Parole on Their First Offense?" by Tayler Gavetti, age 16
"Should Obamacare Be Repealed?" by William Pharo, age 16
"Single Payer: A Cure for America's Healthcare Woes" by Akshay Manglik, age 13
"Streaky Friendship" by Yuxin Long, age 16
"Technology: A Hindrance to Learning" by Zachary Weiss, age 17
"Teens, Technology, and The Pursuit of Happiness" by Sam Jagolinzer, age 17
"The Bluest Note" by Nicholas Dasoveanu, age 18
"The College Conspiracy" by Serenity W., age 17
"The Cost of Health Care May Be in Your Genes" by Sophia Lo, age 16
"The Demoralizing of the Elizabethan Language" by Olivia Seymour, age 14
"The Disposable Nightmare" by Tianxin Guo, age 14
"The Education Gap" by Adam Traweek, age 16 "The Environment in the Age of Trump" by Elliot Tuttle, age 17
"The Growing Problem of Screen Addiction" by Kaitlin Craig, age 16
"The Picture of Education We Must Change" by Danielle Naidrich, age 17
"Tipping the Pay Scale" by Ruhee Damle, age 14
"Untitled" by Melinda Hartz, age 16
"We Should Be Teaching Rap Music in Schools" by Jack Zuckerman, age 19
"What Do You Call Someone That Only Speaks One Language? An American." by Paige Patton, age 16
"Where Are All the Rainbows?" by Storm Viridian Murray, age 17
"Where Trump's Ban Stands Legally" by Marcus Linde, age 16
_________ And All the Finalists, Including 58 More Great Editorials That Made It to Round 3 (PDF) Judges: Amanda Christy Brown, Shannon Doyne, Caroline Crosson Gilpin, Michael Gonchar, Annissa Hambouz, Thomas Houston, Shira Katz, Willow Lawson, Linda Leavitt, Sue Mermelstein, Anna North, Roxie Salamon-Abrams, Katherine Schulten, Matt Schwarzfeld, Natlie Shutler and Kate Spence-Ado

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A Call to Action: Winners From Our Fourth Annual Student Editorial Contest (Published 2017)

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Contests Update | Read the work of _________ this year's 10 winners here and this year's runners-up here . For the past four years we've invited students to write short editorials about issues they care about, and each year thousands take up the challenge.

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Contests

One of our 2017 editorial winners wrote about China's unofficial ban on Korean cultural exports, such as the boy band Exo. Credit... Starnews, via Agence France-Presse - Getty Images

The challenge is fairly straightforward. Choose a topic you care about, gather evidence from sources both within and outside The Times and write a concise editorial (450 words or less) to convince readers of your view.

Because editorial writing at newspapers is a collaborative process, you can write your entry as a team effort or by yourself. When you're done, submit it using the contest form below by Thursday, April 5, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. Be sure to read the rules, also below, before posting.

Our judges will then use this rubric (PDF) for selecting winners to publish on The Learning Network.

As teachers know, the persuasive essay has long been a staple of high school education, but the Common Core standards seem to have put evidence-based argumentative writing on everybody's agenda. You couldn't ask for a more real-world example of the genre than the classic newspaper editorial - and The Times publishes, on average, two of them a day.

And at a time when breaking out of one's "filter bubble" is more important than ever, we hope this contest also encourages students to broaden their news diets by using multiple sources, ideally ones that offer a range of perspectives on their chosen issue.

So what issue do you care about? Gun violence? Sexual harassment? Social media? You decide.

Good luck, and please post any questions you might have in the comments. We'll answer you there.

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Note: The submission form has been removed from this page. The contest is closed.
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Video

The New York Times's editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal provides seven tips for writing an effective editorial.

To help with this challenge, Andrew Rosenthal, in his previous role as Editorial Page editor of The Times, detailed seven pointers in the video above. And we have published related lesson plans, including " For the Sake of Argument: Writing Persuasively to Craft Short, Evidence-Based Editorials," " I Don't Think So: Writing Effective Counterarguments" and " 10 Ways to Teach Argument-Writing With The New York Times," that offer additional teaching ideas.

We have also culled a list of 401 prompts for argumentative writing organized by category, to help inspire you - although, of course, you are not limited to those topics.

We encourage you to look at both our comments on last year's winners and the winning essays themselves. They can serve as excellent models, and they cover topics from active-shooter school lockdowns to Korean television shows in China.

In addition, you can watch our free, archived webinar, featuring the Op-Ed columnist Nicholas Kristof and Kabby Hong, a high school English teacher.

1. Use at least one Times source. You can write your editorial about any topic, as long as you use at least one source from The Times. That should pretty much open the whole world to you, as you may be surprised how much you can find in The Times.

Be advised that nytimes.com has a digital subscription system in which readers have access to five free articles each month, but after that you will be asked to become a digital subscriber. The Times also offers K-12 digital subscription plans for schools. But all Learning Network activities for students, including our daily writing prompts, as well as Times articles linked from them, are free, so you can access them without exceeding the five-article limit.

2. Use at least one non-Times source. But make sure that the source you use is a reliable one. We encourage you to find sources that offer different perspectives on an issue.

3. Always cite your sources. Our submission form contains a required field for entering your citations. We include an example as well, though you can use M.L.A. or A.P.A. styles, or just list the website URLs. Even if you use a print source or an expert interview, you must provide a citation. Readers (and judges) should always know where you got your evidence.

4. Be concise. The editorial must not exceed 450 words. Your title and list of sources are separate, however, and do not count as part of your 450-word limit.

5. Have an opinion. Editorials are different from news articles because they try to persuade readers to share your point of view. Don't be afraid to take a stand.

6. Write your editorial by yourself or with a group. If you are working as a team, just remember to submit all of your names when you post your entry. But please submit only one editorial per student. If you're submitting as part of a team, you should not also submit as an individual.

7. Be original and use appropriate language. Write for a well-informed audience, but include enough background information to give context. Be careful not to plagiarize: Use quotation marks around lines you take verbatim from another source, or rephrase and cite your source.

8. Submissions must be from students who are 13 to 19 years old, and they may come from anywhere in the world. Unlike in previous years, students can now use their entire name if they want.

9. All entries must be submitted by April 5 at 11:59 p.m. Easternusing the contest form above. If you have questions about the contest, feel free to post them in the comments section, and we'll respond to you there.

10. Follow these instructions if you need proof that you entered this contest. Within an hour of submitting your editorial, you should receive an email from "The New York Times" with the subject heading "Thank you for your submission to our Student Editorial Contest." If you don't receive the email within an hour, even after checking your spam folder, then you can resubmit your entry. Be sure your settings allow emails from nytimes.com.

After two attempts and waiting over one full day, if you still have not received a confirmation email, you can contact us at LNFeedback@nytimes.com with the email address you used in the contest form. Use the subject heading "Please send me an email confirmation for my editorial contest submission." Be sure to include your name and editorial title (or subject) in your email. You may have to wait up to a week for a reply.

11. We will use this rubric (PDF) to judge entries, and the winning editorials will be featured on The Learning Network.

" Writing an Editorial" Unit Plan, by Lindsay Thompson

" Reader Idea | He Said, She Said, I Say: A Researched Argument Essay," by Danielle Harms

" Reader Idea | Using an Op-Doc Video to Teach Argumentative Writing," by Allison Marchetti

" Reader Idea | Using Room for Debate to Teach Argumentative Writing and Discussion Skills," by Gerard Dawson and Justin Rex

" Reader Idea | An Argument-Writing Unit: Crafting Student Editorials," by Kayleen Everitt

Good luck and have fun. We welcome your questions and comments if we have omitted details that might be useful. Let us know how we can help.

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The Learning Network runs contests for teenagers all year long. See our full calendar.

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Our Fifth Annual Student Editorial Contest: Write About an Issue That Matters to You (Published 2018)

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Contests The challenge is fairly straightforward. Choose a topic you care about, gather evidence from sources both within and outside The Times and write a concise editorial (450 words or less) to convince readers of your view. Because editorial writing at newspapers is a collaborative process, you can write your entry as a team effort or by yourself.