Think you know America? Join the nationwide contest by November 14th!

4 November 2009

The U.S. Embassy in Warsaw and the Rural Development Foundation are pleased to announce the seventh edition of the Know America Contest.  High school students from all over Poland are invited to test their knowledge about the United States and compete for attractive awards including a three-day educational program in Warsaw. This year’s grand prize winner will participate in the Benjamin Franklin Transatlantic Initiative, a three- to four-week exchange program in the United States.  The “Know America” contest tests participants’ knowledge on all aspects of the American culture including history, geography, arts, and pop culture, as well as social, ethnic, and religious issues.  Last year, over 1000 high school students registered. Join the contest by clicking here.  Registration closes on November 14, 2009.

The “Know America” competition consists of two rounds.  In the first round, students answer 80 multiple-choice questions and in the second round, they write an essay. The contest is run by the Rural Development Foundation, first registered in 1987 as the Water Supply Foundation with a $10 million grant from the U.S. Congress. Initially, the Foundation organized trainings for rural inhabitants on running small scale enterprises and agro-tourism, and on environmental protection and the basics of local democracy and developing citizen awareness. Currently, the Foundation supports the economic, social, cultural, and technical infrastructure initiatives of villages and small towns.
Participants in the Benjamin Franklin Summer Institute (teenagers ages 16-18) benefit from an intensive, three-four week exchange program in the United States that focuses on global issues that European, Central Asian and American youth care about on both sides of the Atlantic.  They engage in a variety of activities such as training sessions, workshops, community-based programs, study tours, and cultural events to gain a new transatlantic perspective on learning, and new perceptions of each other’s communities and broader media culture.

In addition, students explore how young people today interact with the media, both as consumers and producers of information, and how freedom of expression imposes both rights and responsibilities on citizens.  They explore how young people increasingly have come to rely upon mass communication (the use of words, sounds, and images to inform, educate, entertain and persuade) to learn about the world they inhabit, and how mass media not only supplies factual information but also expresses cultural preferences, promotes value systems, and fuels commerce through advertising and product placement.

At the end of the exchange program, students together prepare a joint project that presents their learning and promotes the learning goals of the Benjamin Franklin Transatlantic Fellows Initiative.  The initiative is intended to foster relationships among the youth of Europe, Central Asia and America in order to advance global freedom, build relationships between European and American youth and promote awareness of shared values in light of the global challenges of the 21st century.  It is named after the legendary American statesman and diplomat Benjamin Franklin in honor of the inspiration his own life and career provides to those who are working to strengthen transatlantic cooperation.

Franklin’s career, interests, studies, and life took him back and forth across the Atlantic Ocean, bringing Americans, Central Asians and Europeans closer in understanding.  Even 300 years after his birth, Franklin’s life offers inspiration to young citizens today in the effort to improve transatlantic understanding.  As a diplomat and printer he leveraged the powers of diplomacy and the media to explore how Americans, Central Asians and Europeans see each other and the world.