NPR is inviting students around the country to create a podcast, then — with the help of a teacher — compete for a chance to have their work appear on NPR's Morning Edition or All Things Considered.

Students should create a podcast with their class or extracurricular group, then they will need a teacher to submit it for them. Beginning in January, teachers or qualified educators can submit student entries in two basic categories: grades 5-8 and grades 9-12. Entries can be as short as 3 minutes and as long as 8 minutes.

For 2021, NPR has also added a contest for college students. 

During the last school year, NPR received approximately 2,200 entries from 46 states and the District of Columbia, even in the midst of a school year that was interrupted by a pandemic. As students learned in the past, it doesn’t take a lot of fancy equipment to produce great stories. NPR has promised to provide more training materials and advice on audio reporting, writing, and sound editing and production--all in addition to the outstanding guide they created for teachers to use.

Submissions may be on any topic, but NPR offers the following prompts as suggestions:

• Tell us a story about your school or community: about something that happened there – recently or in the past — that you want your audience to know about.
• What is a moment in history that all students should learn about?
• Show us both sides of a debate about an issue that's important to you.
• What do you want to change about the world? What's a big change that you want to make in the future?
• Explain something to us that kids understand and grownups don't.

The submission period begins January 1. Entries are due by March 15.

Visit NPR’s official rules page to learn entry requirements and criteria that judges will be seeking.

Read more about this year's contest.

• 
•