The King Commission celebrates Dr. King's birthday
and promotes the acceptance of diversity.

It is an opportunity to research and develop a position on the life and activities of Dr. King. Using the following themes, create a web site that conveys the information and teachings of Dr. King's life.

The theme for Elementary School asks:

• Who was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.?
• When people talk about Dr. King having a dream, what do they mean?
• What did Dr. King do or say that promoted the acceptance of people who are different?

Middle School students will explore:

Dr. King once said, "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."

• Is this statement relevant in the United States of America today?

Dr. King also said, "Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable.... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals."

• What progress toward the goal of justice has taken place since Dr. King spoke those words over 40 years ago?
• What else did Dr. King do, say or write that is worth reexamining today?
• What can young people do to advance the cause of justice?

Use your Web design to answer these questions.
Give examples of Dr. King's activities.

High School web pages should examine:

Dr. King once said, "I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a 'thing oriented' society to a 'person-oriented' society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

• Are Dr. King's words relevant today to the United States of America?
• What can students do to make our nation a more p'erson-oriented' society?

Resources and Criteria

Criteria for judging includes how well the Web design conveys the theme, quality and cohesiveness of the graphics and visual design, organization and ease of navigation, and effectiveness of language.

Caveat

Please avoid using the full (or last) name of student entrants in the public document. Initials, first names, teacher names, room numbers, etc., are acceptable. The teacher will know who the entries belong to and will be the one notifying the winners.

Note that the deadline is again later in January -- Tuesday, Jan. 13 -- so students will have time to work on their entries after returning from the winter break. Again this year, the Commission is offering cash prizes.

We would recommend that student web pages be stored on MCCSC resources. While we will do all we can to link to pages stored off-site, we can not guarantee that pages on sites such as Angelfire, Geocities, or other, will always be accessible. Many school filtering systems block these domains because of the number of inappropriate private sites hosted by those vendors. In addition, what is accessible one day may not be the next if one of these sites is found to have changed the way it delivers pages. In other words, we'd much rather provide space for your teachers to use than to struggle with off-site hosts.

It is difficult, often impossible, to move content from an off-site host to an MCCSC site. Pages built on Google, for example, can not be transferred to another host. There should be no problem linking to Google pages, but if a problem develops, we won't be able to move the page so that it can be viewed.

If teachers do not have (or know if he/she has) MCCSC web space, have her/him e-mail us at accounts @ mccsc.edu. We will either create web space or force a password for space they already have. It is possible -- and many schools choose this option -- to house the pages on directories which are part of the school's web site. Either way is acceotable.

Right after the first of the year, participants should begin sending the URLs of the contest pages to czager @ mccsc.edu. These will be listed on the MLK pages and judged from that location after the deadline.

Caveat