HOUSTON, TX — Nov. 14, 2008 —This week ABC-CLIO will launch its new annual research competition for secondary students at the National Council for the Social Studies 88th Annual Conference in Houston. The award-winning developer and publisher of history research databases will award more than $60,000 in cash and prizes in this unique competition for teams of secondary students working in collaboration with their social studies teachers and school library media specialists.

The topic for the inaugural competition is "Select the top 10 people, events or places that have shaped the course of history." Coached by their teacher and/or school library media specialist, student teams will identify their choices and then defend them and present their research findings to ABC-CLIO in an electronic format such as a slide show, online essay, video or animation, or an audio podcast. Entries should be submitted in standards-aligned curriculum categories for high school and middle grades. For high school, the categories are U.S. History, Ancient World History, Modern World History, U.S. Government and Civics, and Geography. For middle grades, the categories are Ancient Civilizations, World History and U.S. History and Government.

"We launched this competition to support ABC-CLIO's overall commitment to helping students develop critical-thinking skills, as well as the ability to think historically," said Becky Snyder, president, ABC-CLIO. "Our competition is unique because it maps closely to the topics that history educators are already teaching in their middle grades and high school classrooms. They can easily integrate it into instruction, assign it as a project or offer participation as an extra-credit opportunity. We are excited to see the innovative and creative approaches in the student team projects."

To conduct their research, teams must use and cite one or more of ABC-CLIO's eight online history databases. For schools not currently subscribing to the databases, free access to all eight databases is available for 90 days. Entries will be judged in April 2009 by a panel of leading historians and history educators, and grand-prize winners will be announced in May 2009.

High school and middle grades grand-prize winning teams will receive a digital whiteboard, a $500 school site cash award, a one-year subscription to ABC-CLIO's award-winning online history databases and a student cash award for each participating team member. There will be five high school grand-prize winners and three middle grades grand-prize winners — one per curriculum-aligned category.

Throughout the competition, monthly drawings will be held, selecting participating teams for gift certificates that can be used to purchase titles from ABC-CLIO's outstanding print collection of reference books. All grand-prize winning entries will be showcased online in the "History Uncovered Hall of Fame." In addition, two additional entries per category for both high school and middle grades teams will be awarded a place in the "Hall of Fame" and will receive school site cash awards, as well as cash awards for student team members.

To participate and be eligible for the grand prizes as well as the four monthly prize drawings, teams should visit www.abc-clio.com/historyuncovered to register. More information about the competition rules and requirements is also available on that site. All entries must be submitted by March 30, 2009.


About ABC-CLIO
ABC-CLIO combines more than 50 years of experience as a premier education and library publisher with a deep commitment to using digital and other emerging technologies to publish the highest quality materials. A privately held publisher of educational and reference products, the company focuses on resources for the scholar, student, teacher and librarian in universities and secondary schools. Under the leadership of CEO Ron Boehm and President Becky Snyder, ABC-CLIO works with more than 5,000 scholars and educators to develop its collection of award-winning print and online reference and resource publications. The company's headquarters is in Santa Barbara, Calif., with branch offices in Denver, Colo., and Oxford, England. For more information, visit www.abc-clio.com.


For more information, press only:
ABC-CLIO:
Lisa Wolfe, L. Wolfe Communications, 773-227-1049, lwolfe@lwolfe.com