If you’re a young writer looking to get published, you need to know about Teen Voices‘ new short story competition, 20 Under 20. Teen Voices is challenging you to write a short story (no more than 1200 words) about what the word “TWENTY” means to you. They’re especially interested in stories that deal with themes like growing up, overcoming difficulty, succeeding, and changing the world.

To help you get your creative juices flowing, Teen Voices has tapped into journalist, author, and book critic Lucy Atkins to host a series of free online story writing workshops every week where you can get writing tips and oodles of inspiration.

Short stories entered in the competition will be judged by bestselling author Anita Diamant, who wrote the NY Times Bestseller The Red Tent, among others. Two grand prize winners will get their stories published online and in the Fall 2011 print edition of Teen Voices, as well as win a Kindle. Another 18 runner-ups will get to see their story published on Teen Voices online over the coming year.

To find out more about the submission requirements, visit Teen Voices website. And start thinking about your idea now…the deadline for entries is March 21, 2011. Good luck!

Who says science fairs have to happen in middle and high school cafeterias and gymnasiums? Especially when Google is involved. Google has just announced its own , in which they’re looking for the brightest, best young scientists from around the world to submit interesting, creative projects that are relevant to the world today. Participation is open to full-time students between the ages 13 – 18 who are enrolled in a private or public school. Home-schooled students are also eligible.

Entrants are required to use Google Sites and will be required to submit it either as a maximum two (2) minute video or maximum twenty (20) slide Google Presentation on the homepage of their Google Site (see for instructions). Using the Google Sites application, Entrants or Teams will be required to upload a synopsis video or slide presentation (but not both) and all other required information, as listed on the Competition Site. Entrants are encouraged to create their Project Entry by using Google Docs, YouTube, Maps, Google Earth, Google Search and any other Google tools which can be used in education.

Entrants can submit Projects in any one of the following categories:

• Computer Science & Math
• Earth & Environmental Sciences
• Behavioral & Social Sciences
• Flora & Fauna
• Energy & Space
• Inventions & Innovation
• Physics
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Food Science
• Electricity & Electronics

Winners of Google’s Science Fair will get more than just a ribbon to pin on their bulletin board. Check out the awards lined up for this competition:

The Grand Prize winner(s) plus one parent or guardian per winner will win an amazing 10 day trip to the Galapagos Islands with National Geographic Expeditions. Traveling aboard the National Geographic Endeavour the winner(s) will visit Darwin’s living laboratory and experience up-close encounters with unique species such as flightless cormorants, marine iguanas, and domed giant tortoises.

Grand prize winners will also receive a $50,000 scholarship, split equally between team members should a team win this prize, their first choice of an experience at CERN, Google, the LEGO Group, or Scientific American, a personal LEGO color mosaic, and digital access to Scientific American Archives for your school.

Finalists will receive a $25,000 scholarship, split equally between team members should a team win this prize, second and third choice by random selection of one of the remaining experiences at CERN, Google, the LEGO Group, or Scientific American, a personal LEGO color mosaic, and digital access to Scientific American Archives for your school.

To find out more, visit the . Deadline for entries is April 4, 2011.

Hello Smart Girls,

Along with the rest of the country, I’ve been reading, listening, and watching coverage of this past Saturday’s tragedy in which a 22-year-old opened fire on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her staff and supporters – an event which left 6 people dead and 14 wounded – with horror and sadness. That such terrible acts of violence happen at all is incredibly disturbing…it’s the kind of thing that shakes you up to your very soul.

In the days since the shooting, the media and certain politicians have been dissecting the event, trying to make sense of what happened, looking to place blame, to answer unanswerable questions. If you’ve been paying any attention to the media coverage, you’ve probably heard about the hot-button issues currently being debated: the “crosshairs” on a certain map, the hostile and threatening language used by both politicians and some in the media, and whether or not the shooter was politically motivated or just plain crazy.

I think it’s important to examine these different issues, so we can look at them through a different lens. So here goes.

Let’s start with the “crosshairs.” The crosshairs refer to symbols displayed on a map of the United States on a website operated by former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The site, which was taken down within minutes of the shooting, was called Take Back the 20, with 20 referring to the 20 House Democrats who voted for Obama’s healthcare bill in districts that Republicans won in the 2008 election. At the top of the map it said, “We’ve diagnosed the problem. Help prescribe the solution.”

Since the shooting, pundits have been going back and forth discussing these crosshairs, saying they weren’t representative of a gun. Rather, they were “surveyor symbols” or symbols sometimes used on maps. Others claim they were simply “bullseyes.”

I understand why some people are denying these were crosshairs. I get it. But even that the symbol is unclear means many will and did interpret it as a crosshair in a weapon. After all – a commonly accepted definition of a crosshair is: “A set of two perpendicular lines in the sight of a firearm, used to align the gun with the target,” not to mention the fact that Sarah Palin is a life-member of the National Rifle Association (NRA), a gun-rights advocate, and has famously said in one of her speeches, “Don’t retreat….reload.” Do I think that Sarah Palin was advocating the shooting of politicians who voted for Obama’s healthcare plan? Of course not. Do I think that it’s okay to use symbols of violence or imply that weapons should be used as tools to advocate for change? Absolutely not.

Let’s move on to the hostile language used by some politicians and media pundits. Name calling, put downs, and threats are so commonly heard on the news that it doesn’t even make many people blink. Whether it’s Sarah Palin encouraging her supporters to “stop cars with Obama stickers” and confront the passengers or Glenn Beck saying he wishes he could kill liberal filmmaker Michael Moore (“I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it?”) or Keith Olbermann calling the Republican party “the leading terrorist group in this country.” At what point did it become okay for adults, grown people with high-powered jobs and matching salaries, to use hate speech? How in the world does this contribute to society in any way, shape or form?

Lastly, we look at the shooter himself, 22-year-old Jared Loughner. As details about the young man emerge, it’s becoming clearer and clearer that this is someone who is mentally unstable, someone who had a personal vendetta with the Congresswomen Gabrielle Giffords. Therefore, many say, he was a ticking time bomb, and no hate speech or symbols on a map are responsible for pushing him over the edge. While I agree that there is no way to know what triggered Loughner to snap and take his horrible action, it would be naive to assume that the current political climate didn’t play any role in contributing to this young man’s state of mind.

Okay. Let’s shift gears for a minute. Think about your high school or a school in your community and ask yourself these questions:

• What would happen if a student posted yearbook photos of kids or teachers from his or her school with crosshairs strategically placed over some of the faces? Should school administrators look the other way and act as if this isn’t a threat of violence?
• Should a student running for student government be allowed to call his or her opponents hateful names or give campaign speeches encouraging supporters to take violent action to ensure the outcome they want?
• Should a student be able to say anything he or she wants about another student, even if it makes that person feel depressed, sad, threatened, or ostracized, and claim they have the right to do because of freedom of speech?

Of course not. That’s because to use language or symbolism that is meant to make another person feel threatened, insecure, or negative in any way is called BULLYING. We don’t stand for bullying in our schools and communities among children and young people. So why should we stand for it among our elected officials and the media that we go to as trusted sources of information? What kind of behavior do such high profile pundits and politicians think they’re modeling for the rest of us? Don’t they know that by behaving in such an irresponsible way they are sending the message to young people everywhere that this is the way the world works? That while bullying may not be okay in school, it’s the way to get ahead in real life?

With regards to the Giffords tragedy, the finger pointing and blaming and justifications and back-peddling continues. I’d like to encourage those in positions of power, whether in politics or the media, commit to doing their part to change the climate we live in. To own their role in the discourse. To realize the tremendous responsibility they have to be thoughtful with what they say and how they act.

Last year, Marianne Williamson wrote a piece on the Huffington Post called a Plea to Sarah Palin: Words Have Power. Here’s some of what Marianne wrote in April 2010:

I have defended you since reading the book, particularly when others would make fun of your comments about looking to God’s Will to guide you. But something is happening now that is so critical to this country, with such genuinely significant repercussions, that I implore you to hear me — not just as a fellow American, but as a sister who I know prays to the same God that I do: Words have power. Please modify your words.

To echo what Marianne says, words DO have power. Every word we use has an impact. The way we act has an impact. Our impact can be positive or negative, depending on where we stand, but it will contribute to what’s happening in the world in some way. Please join me in committing to using our words and actions to creative positive change.

Courtney Macavinta, my trusted friend, fellow-author, and founder of The Respect Institute (an institute providing youth, parents, educators, policymakers and organizations with the vision, tools and research they need to build self-respect and spread respect for all), says it beautifully:

“Disrespect is truly contagious. It’s easy to insight each other to be disrespectful – and even hateful towards others – because it momentarily makes us feel bigger, stronger, better than others. Pay attention to how the feeling quickly fades. It does so because it’s false power. The power of respect is so much stronger and sustainable. It creates bridges, solutions, and healthy relationships where they didn’t exist before. But true respect starts on the inside. When you take accountability for how you think about yourself, how you treat yourself, and how you treat others, you can change the world for real.”

With peace & love,

Debbie

A little more than a year ago, MTV launched its “A Thin Line” campaign – an initiative aimed at stopping the spread of abuse in the form of sexting, cyberbullying and digital dating abuse. The campaign hopes to empower America’s youth to identify, respond to and stop the spread of the various forms of digital harassment.

A Thin Line is built on the understanding that there’s a “thin line” between what may begin as a harmless joke and something that could end up having a serious impact. MTV hopes to spark a conversation and deliver information that helps young people everywhere draw their own digital line.

To move this mission forward, MTV is looking for young people between the ages of 14 and 29 with experience in social media to be members of its A Thin Line Street Team, otherwise known as campaign ambassadors. Here are the kinds of things A Thin Line Street Team members will do:

• Help drive conversations about the impact of digital abuse in the lives of young people on the campaign’s various social media outlets, including the website, Facebook and more.
• Spread the word about the campaign among schools and communities to help people feel empowered to recognize and address digital abuse.
• Provide input to the A Thin Line to ensure the campaign is reaching the audience in the best way possible.

Interested? Here’s what you need to do: send answers to the following questions (no more than 500 words total) with the subject line “Street Team” to . MTV will contact you by phone or email to let you know if you have been selected.

• How old are you?
• What grade / year of college are you in?
• Where are you from?
• What is your gender?
• Why do you want to be a Street Teamer?
• What would make you a great Street Teamer?  Have you done any work related to digital abuse? If so, have you worked with any other organizations?
• What ideas do you have to extend the reach of A THIN LINE and make it more effective?
• What is your email address and phone number?

Good luck!

A photo shoot featured in the December issue of Vogue Paris has many girls rights advocates, including yours truly, up in arms. The photos feature extremely young girls dressed up in women’s clothes, covered in makeup and jewelry, and displayed in oversexualized poses. For the record, “sexualization” was defined by the American Psychological Association (APA) as occurring “when a person’s value comes only from her/his sexual appeal or behavior, to the exclusion of other characteristics, and when a person is sexually objectified, e.g., made into a thing for another’s sexual use.”

I’d say this editorial qualifies: Throughout the 13-photo spread, in which girls are “modeling” women’s clothing, shoes, jewelry, makeup, and other “gifts” (the spread is called “Cadeux” which is French for “gift), the young girls are shown laying down in provocative positions on a bed, on the floor, on a tiger fur (see pic above) and more, all while looking seductively at the camera. You can see all the images here.

I find these images so disturbing, so wrong, that I have to wonder: What is the point of this photo editorial spread? What was Vogue Paris thinking? Seriously…I don’t get it. Do the editors actually believe that women, the ultimate consumers of the products being modeled, are more likely to purchase these items if they’re modeled on pre-pubescent girls? Do they not realize how these images aren’t only in poor taste, but they actually perpetuate the harmful notion that girls should be objectified and that their real value is in their beauty and sexuality?

I can only assume that Vogue Paris hasn’t read the APA’s recent report on the oversexualization of adolescent girls, which found that the proliferation of sexualized images of girls and young women in advertising, merchandising, and media is undoubtedly harmful to girls’ self-image and healthy development. Here are just a few of the negative outcomes for girls:

• When girls repeatedly receive a strong message that a girl’s worth is primarily determined by how beautiful, thin, hot, and sexy she is, over time many girls view their bodies and their appearance as objects to be evaluated by others. (Instead of evaluating themselves from a first person perspective – “How do I think I look or feel?”, they focus on themselves from a third person perspective—as they believe others will be judging them -“How are others judging my body and appearance?”)
• Girls as young as age 11 who are preoccupied with self-monitoring and fear of not meeting others’ expectations are more likely to experience negative psychological outcomes including shame, anxiety, poor self-esteem, depression, and eating disorders.
• When middle school girls spend their mental resources on body monitoring, self-evaluation, and concerns about others’ negative judgments, they have a decreased capacity to fully engage in challenging activities, including academic tasks. As a result, girls often emerge from middle school with a lowered sense of self-esteem, a discouragement with school, and a school performance that does not match earlier achievements.
• As girls are objectified, they are more likely to be treated in sexually degrading ways, resulting in sexual harassment or even sexual assault. Girls who are sexually harassed at school experience significant negative outcomes including difficulties in concentration, avoidance of specific individuals, changes in school attendance, and lower self-esteem.
• There are far more female role models in popular media who are in sexualized roles such as beauty pageant contestants, plastic surgery patients, video vixens, or reality television stars. In efforts to please others and to gain male attention, many girls make educational and career decisions that could negatively impact their futures.
• Girls who judge themselves on cultural standards of sexiness may have lower esteem and self-worth if they feel they do not meet those standards.
• As girls internalize media messages which portray sexual images that are “devoid of emotions, attachment, or consequences” messages, they increasingly present themselves socially in overly sexualized ways. Due to these sexualized Internet and media influences, many girls today may not know what a healthy sexual relationship is and how to garner respect in a caring relationship.

I’m sure that if Vogue Paris knew these findings, they wouldn’t have published their offensive photo essay in the first place, right? Well, maybe we should fill them in. If you want to take a stand against this oversexualization of girls in the media, let Conde Nast, the publisher of Vogue Paris, know that they’ve gone too far. Join me in signing this petition created by Change.org!

And to read more on this issue, please check out my friend and media guru Amy Jussell’s Shaping Youth blog post, “Children are Gifts: Not to Be Wrapped and Sold.”

I’m excited to give a special shout out to friend, mentor, and librarian extraordinaire Nancy Pearl, who was just named Librarian of the Year by the Library Journal! As the article making the announcement states, “No one other than Nancy Pearl has so convinced Americans that libraries, books, and reading are critical to our communities. Her passionate advocacy has done that nationwide for thousands of individual readers and library workers in the trenches at the local level.”

I first met Nancy while writing my book In Their Shoes, as she was one of the 50 amazing women I profiled. We met up for tea and a pastry at a cafe in the Eastlake neighborhood of Seattle and she told me about her career journey. What I found most inspirational about Nancy is that she followed her passion – books and reading – and in doing so made an indelible mark on the world of books, fostering millions of readers along the way. Though Nancy worked as a librarian for many years, since retiring she has written multiple books about books, frequently contributes to NPR and other radio programs, and speaks all of the country about the subject she loves most. Nancy reminded me that no matter what your passion is – be it reading or photography or working with people or engineering – with creativity and drive you can create the career of your dreams.

Here are some highlights from my interview with Nancy that’s featured in In Their Shoes:

Me: You knew you wanted to be a librarian from the time you were 10 years old. What is it about being a librarian that appealed to you?

Nancy: I came from a family of do-gooders, people who really believed that you could change the world and make it a better place. And for me, the way that I understood even at 10 that you could make the world a better place was by being a librarian, especially a children’s librarian, and opening up the world of books and reading to kids who might be in unfortunate home situations or in other difficult places in their lives. Books have that unique ability in that you can both lose yourself and find yourself in the pages of the same book.

Me: So now reflecting back, did you achieve your goal?

Nancy: Yes, I do think that librarians make the world a better place. A librarian is not solely a person who retrieves information – the public library is really the heart and soul of a community. I think that through recommending good books to read or through programming that they do, librarians make a library a living, breathing place.

Me: Do you make a distinction between your work and your personal life?

Nancy: Robert Frost has a poem in which he talks about when love and work are one, and I think that should be the goal. I’ve been fortunate enough that there’s never been a separation between what I do in my work and what I would choose to do if I weren’t in this job. I guess that’s one result of knowing at age ten what I wanted to do. I’ve always just loved to read and escape into the pages of a book.

Congratulations on this honor, Nancy!

I’m sorry, but how cool is this? Ten-year-old Kathryn Gray from Canada has just become a world-renowned astronomer. How? She became the youngest person ever to discover an exploding star, otherwise known as a supernova.

Supernovas are relatively rare events – according to the website Space.com, on average, a supernova will occur about once every 50 years in a galaxy the size of the Milky Way. When a supernova is burning, its brilliance can outshine entire galaxies and radiate more energy than our sun will in its entire lifetime.

The only way to discovery a supernova is to go through old images of star fields and compare them to new pictures, which is exactly what Kathryn was doing when she studied a bunch of images that had been sent to her father, an amateur astronomer.

When Kathryn spotted the supernova, she showed it to her father, who worked with her to rule out other possibilities, such as an asteroid or a supernova that had already been discovered. But Kathryn’s discovery was new – she found a supernova that happened in a galaxy more than 240 million light years away.

Congratulations, Kathryn!