STEM Modeling Challenge–Florida Virtual School

I saw this announcement on the Advanced Placement Computer Science teacher forums and thought it worth sharing.

Let’s Raise the Bar for STEM Education! 
Whether you are interested in Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, or Math,
enter the STEM Modeling Challenge©!

Florida Virtual School is sponsoring the STEM Modeling Challenge, an academic competition in which high school students explore a STEM related problem with the opportunity to win cash prizes.  There will be five rounds lasting approximately 20-25 days each in which students complete a specific task in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and art to come up with a solution to the STEM related problem. During the final round, students will apply their accumulated knowledge from the previous tasks and write a computer program to develop a simple predictive model.  This should be of particular interest to students taking introductory and advanced computer science courses.

One of the goals of the STEM Modeling Challenge is to promote awareness and interest in computer science in support of the Common Core Standards and the College Board's efforts to promote STEM education.

Please help us spread the word and share this information with your students.  The deadline to apply is January 31, 2013.  Further information can be found at http://smc2013.weebly.com/.