Google Product Helping Blog

Last October, we kicked off our annual Doodle 4 Google art competition, asking students to create a doodle to tell the world �What makes me�me.� This time around, we added a little twist: for the first time in eight years of Doodle 4 Google, there were no restrictions on the medium or materials kids could use to create a doodle. Kids took us up on the challenge. A quarter of all finalists used some non-traditional media�from clay and wood to origami, photographs and sheets of music�in their submission. Today, Googlers are hosting surprise assemblies at schools from Waterville, Maine to Waipahu, Hawaii to celebrate the winners of each state and thank the teachers and parents who have encouraged them along the way. And for the first time ever, we�re announcing winners for Washington, D.C., Guam and Puerto Rico. See all 53 State and Territory Winner s on our website. Now, our finalists need your votes for a shot at having their doodle make it onto the Google homepage. Starting today thro...

At the Bronx Latin School in New York City, teacher Katrina Roman says the topic of ancient history doesn�t usually set students abuzz. But this week, they took a field trip to ancient Mayan ruins using Google Expeditions, a virtual reality teaching tool built with Google Cardboard. Normally, their assignment would involve poring over photocopied photographs, but instead, they stood at the top of Chichen Itza, then examined detailed carvings at Tenochtitlan. Amid �oohs� and �aahhs,� the students shouted out details they noticed and shot hands up to answer Ms. Roman�s questions. Katrina Roman�s class at the Bronx Latin School fills out their assignment after visiting Aztec ruins with Expeditions. The class is part of a history and geography pilot with New Visions for Public Schools . Starting today, we�re bringing this experience to thousands of schools around the world with the new Expeditions Pioneer Program . During the 2015/2016 school year, we�ll be bringing �kits� containing ever...

Mariette DiChristina is the Editor in Chief and senior vice president of Scientific American �the first woman to hold the role in the magazine's 170-year history. She has been a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science since 2011 and served as president of the National Association of Science Writers in 2009 and 2010. She joins us here today to share her perspective on the Google Science Fair, which is in its fifth edition this year. -Ed. This marks my fifth year with the Google Science Fair . In October 2010, when I had my first conversations with my friends at Google about their idea to create a global online science fair that any kid 13�18 could participate in, I thought it sounded pretty cool. But I couldn�t then imagine just how inspiring and powerful such a competition would turn out to be in reality. At the time, I hadn�t even been editor in chief of Scientific American for a year, but I had real ambitions to try to do something to make a difference i...