The purpose of this study was to examine the views of international Science Olympiad participants on the benefits of the competition and the factors that affected their career aspirations. We also investigated how students' choice of competition category varied with respect to gender. The sample included 273 International Sustainable World Energy, Engineering, and Environment Project (I-SWEEEP) participants from 39 countries. Mixed-methods were used to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics and t-statistics were provided to answer the first question. As a means of addressing the second question, a chisquare test was utilized to examine how participants' category selection differed by gender. Qualitative analysis was used to reveal the types of benefits students reaped from participation in the I-SWEEEP. Results indicated that students were most affected by their teachers, parents, and personal interests. Although the relationship between gender and competition category was not statistically significant, there nevertheless emerged a pattern showing that girls preferred environmental science projects (45.5%) to engineering projects (24.4%). Qualitative analyses revealed six themes as benefits that students gained from participation in the I-SWEEEP. The relationship among the fundamental themes was also examined and revealed important findings. The results have educational implications for helping students accomplish to be science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) professionals in the future.

This study examines students' conceptualization of scientific method from three perspectives: (a) participation in an international science fair, (b) gender differences, and (c) participation from different geographic regions worldwide. An online Word Association Test (WAT) with 10 stimulus words that are associated with scientific method was administered to high school students from more than 35 countries. Findings indicated that the semantic network of students who participated in the I-SWEEEP Olympiad had stronger connections among the 10 key concepts compared to that of non-I-SWEEEP students. Findings also revealed that male participants overall had a more complex semantic network of scientific method than their female counterparts. In addition, students from Americas, mostly U.S., had a more complex conception of scientific method than their counterparts from Eastern Europe and Asia. Results have implications about understanding affordances of science fairs in conceptualization of scientific method and about addressing gender and geographic differences.

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Digital Storytelling is an effective tool to develop Media Literacy skills in educational settings. This chapter will analyze and present current research/literature on Media Literacy through Digital Storytelling in regard to developing and assessing media literacy skills. Authors have been implementing an instructional project called Digital Storytelling Contests (DISTCO) since 2008 (http://www.distco.org). DISTCO reached out to more than 10000 K-16 students and teachers over the years. The goal is to relay the experiences on how media literacy has been developed through Digital Storytelling activities with DISTCO. In addition, the current DISTCO rubric for assessing digital storytelling projects is modified to include a version assessing Media Literacy through digital storytelling.

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