NPR Student Podcast Challenge: Home

Welcome to the 2021 Student Podcast Challenge! If you're looking for our college contest click here.

We're inviting students around the country to create a podcast, then — with the help of a teacher — compete for a chance to win our grand prize and have your work appear on NPR.

Be a part of the NPR Student Podcast Challenge.

Here's how it works: Put together a podcast with your class or extracurricular group. Then your teacher can submit it to us.

This contest is for teachers with students between 5th and 12th grade. Each podcast should be between three and 8 minutes long.

The winning podcast submissions will be featured in segments on Morning Edition or All Things Considered.

We don't expect you to be experts. In fact, we're guessing that most of you are putting a podcast together for the very first time. Don't panic!

Visit our submission guide to find suggested prompts, guidelines for submissions, and a list of questions you might have.

But before you do anything, it's important to read the official rules here.

Sure, this is a competition, but it's also about learning new skills in a fun way. We want to make that learning easier — so we've put together materials to help both teachers and students along the way.

Our panel of expert judges will be listening for creative work that stands out. You can find a full set of judging criteria here.

Questions? Read through our frequently asked questions here. If you're still looking for an answer, send us an email at studentpodcastchallenge@npr.org.