The New York Hall of Science is hosting a Master Magician Contest in anticipation of the opening of the blockbuster exhibition Magic: The Science of Illusion on June 28.

SMART Technologies is teaming up with TeacherTube to offer the Extraordinary Moments Video Contest. We’re looking for 30-second commercials that best answer this question: How do SMART products help you create extraordinary moments in your classroom?

The MindMashup video contest takes its inspiration from a quote from George Bernard Shaw: “If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” This year’s Sparky contest is being organized by SPARC (the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition) with additional co-sponsorship by the Association of College and Research Libraries, the Association of Research Libraries, Penn Libraries (at the University of Pennsylvania), Students for Free Culture, and The Student PIRGs. Details are online at www.sparkyawards.org.

Content: make a short video to illustrate the power of info sharing.
Deadline of video contest submission: Nov 30 2008
Eligibility: To be eligible, submissions must be publicly available on the Internet – on a Web site or in a digital repository – and available for use under a Creative Commons License.
Prize: The Winner will receive a cash prize of $1,000 along with a Sparky Award statuette. Two Runners Up will each receive $500 plus a personalized award certificate.
Rules of video contest: http://www.sparkyawards.org/

I like the idea of having a video contest centering around remix culture, and the first video that comes to my mind is that of Michael Wesch, anthropology professor who made a video of what the Web looks like today, and became a viral video success reaching about a million viewers.

Now your task is to show what our culture looks like today, I guess. Even though we knew that our culture is basically remix, it is even more visible thanks to the web, and more easily remixable at the same time. Total Recut ( a video remix community website) has managed to get great judges for this touchy and blurry challenge: Lawrence Lessig, Henry Jenkins, Kembrew McLeod, Pat Aufderheide, JD Lasica and Mark Hosler
Content: make a video answering the question ‘What is Remix Culture?’ You can you use any footage you can find, including Public Domain and Creative Commons work, max. 3 minutes – min 30 seconds long. Don’t forget you “must remix previously published video footage” and can use your own too.

Prizes: laptop computer loaded with video editing and conversion software, a digital camcorder, a digital media player, as well as Special Edition Total Recut T-Shirts, books, DVDs and CDs.

Deadline: June 1 2008

Eligibility: Contest is open to natural persons of any age, from any country.

Video Contest Rules: http://www.totalrecut.com/contest-guidelines.php

Check out more video contests in the USA and worldwide.

Video Contest promo video:

And here’s the video made by Michael Wesch, anthropology professor: The Machine Is Us/ing Us This is a slightly revised and cleaned up version of the video that was featured on YouTube in February 2007.

Ball State Senior Jagjeet Singh Chahal a $1,000 scholarship from Miles Electric Vehicles in an Earth Day Video Contest. What’s more, the California-based company gave an $18,000 electric car (top speed of 25 miles per hours) to Ball State University.

Check out more video contests in an easy to use detailed calendar.

The title of the Step Forward video contest was inspired by Kofi Annan ‘61 when he said, “We all have the power to make choices. We can choose to be silent and turn away. Or we can Step Forward and take action.

content: show what Macalester alumni enjoy, and what’s unique about Macalester to potential donors, e.g. the quality of work Macalester students can produce, as well as many different perspectives about student life today – max 5 min
prize: up to $5,000
deadline: Sept. 15 2008
aim: “the college hopes the capital campaign will draw in $150 million dollars over the next few years. The money will go toward financial aid, faculty salaries, the new Fine Arts center, Institute for Global Citizenship and the Macalester Athletic Recreation Center.” (via the MacWeekly)
Step Forward Events Coordinator Karlyn Wegmann

Florida launched a video contest in order to protect St Johns River, and several high school students participated in the contest in the hope of sending out the green message and to win the grand prize of the contest: $1,000. I think this video contest was a truly good example of a, involving kids b, being preventive about how kids will be thinking of their own water resources c, answering an existing environmental problem

The hope is that the video contest would bring students in on water issues, including the controversy that surrounds tapping the river to alleviate the potential water shortage, he said. “Kids are really not included. They don’t have a seat at the table yet. Kids have as much, or more, to lose,” he said. Orth said the videos were not to include conservation tips — that has been done. Instead, Riverkeeper wanted a “compelling message” about why water conservation is necessary. According to the Riverkeeper Web site, each resident along the St. Johns waterway uses as much as 150 gallons of water daily, about 50 gallons more per day than the national per-person average. The organization wants lawmakers to look at other means before tapping the St. Johns River to solve the water crisis. (from Orlando Sentinel )

Here’s a video of Florida St Johns river, the St. Johns-Econlockhatchee Mosaic, one of seven critical natural habitats in Central Florida that need to be preserved for future generations. (2006

Check out more video contests in the USA and worldwide.

As Gale is celebrating National Library Week (April 13-19, 2008), it announced a YouTube video contest for ’songwriters’ who are willing to perform love songs to their favorite book or author. “The contest encourages booklovers to literally sing the praises of their favorite books and authors during this year’s Books & Authors contest.” (PRweb)

Check out further online video contests in a quick overview in this user-friendly Video Contest Calendar.

In cooperation with the Wright Museum of World War II History (Wolfeboro, NH), Big Y Foods (Springfield, MA), Market Basket (Tewksbury, MA), the Manchester City Library (Manchester, NH), and other New England businesses, nonprofits and community groups, the U.S. Navy Leadership Challenge invites you to use your creative video force to produce a short film about your “Hometown Hero.”

eligibility: New England high school students between 15 and 18

prize: two-day, all-expenses-paid trip to a Navy installation on the East Coast in June 2008.

deadline: May 15 2008

more info: http://www.navy.com/leadershipchallenge/

If you are a high school student who happens to have a favorite teacher, take your camcorder and feature her/ him.

via The Ironton Tribune