ePals and the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage are hosting the 2014 Junior Folklorist Challenge. The challenge asks students to identify examples of folklore in their communities, identify tradition bearers, and conduct interviews with tradition bearers. Interviews can be recorded in text, video, or audio. After conducting and recordings their interviews students need to create a short (under seven minutes) video, audio slideshow, or podcast about their chosen tradition and tradition bearer. Click here to see all of the presentation requirements. See the video below for more information about the challenge.

Applications for Education
Even if your students don’t make submissions to the 2014 Junior Folklorist Challenge, the concept of the challenge makes for a great local history project. Collaboratively creating a website to organize and feature presentations about local traditions could be a good community service for your students.