General Description:

The Massachusetts Financial Education Collaborative (MFEC) K-16 committee provides financial education and awareness to youth and young adults. The MFEC K-16 committee is sponsoring a competition for Middle School students in public, private, or home schools.

The focus of this competition will be to generate interesting and attention-grabbing videos that expand the awareness of the most fundamental of all personal money management decisions: Needs and Wants.  Students in grades 6-8 will produce, direct, and act in videos on the financial literacy concept of Needs and Wants that will be geared to students their own age, but may inform other age groups as well.

Needs are expenses that are absolutely necessary (e.g., your housing, utilities, food, and transportation).  Wants are optional purchases (e.g. music, magazines or books, and eating out).  Some items can be both a Need and a Want.  For example:  You need to eat, but you could pack a lunch instead of paying to eat out at a restaurant or cafeteria every day.

Middle School age students are a growing population of consumers being aggressively targeted by marketing and advertising campaigns from many sources.  The MFEC K-16 committee is giving educators the opportunity to work with their students to increase the awareness of Needs and Wants, and then have the students reach their peers by producing a video.  Teams will upload their video to YouTube, and submit the required documents to enter the competition. A panel of judges, including committee members and others selected by the committee, will judge all submissions.  The top videos will be uploaded to the www.masssaves.org website where they will be voted on by the public.  The popular vote will be used to aid in the final award decision, along with the judging panel scores.

Eligibility:

• The contest is open to middle school students in Massachusetts grades 6-8.  An individual student or team of up to five students can produce a video.  Teams are encouraged!  No team member can compete on more than one team.  Any team with a member registered on more than one team will be disqualified from the contest.
• Each video entrant must have an adult educator/teacher.  There is no limit to the number of entrants an educator may oversee. (Some examples of educator/teachers include: afterschool program leader, Boy Scout leader, Girl Scout leader, math teacher, theater teacher, history teacher, school administration, homeschool teacher, etc.)

Video Production and Submission:

• The video may be no longer than 3 minutes, and may not contain any profanity, nudity, or drug/alcohol references.
• The contest committee reserves the right to disqualify any entry based on inappropriate or inaccurate content.
• The video should contain a title and credits. Credits should include team members’ first name and role.
• All work to produce the video including but not limited to script writing, animation, performing and editing must be done by the student members of the team, under adult supervision. Editing must be done by the team members using personal computer software or the resources of their school/organization. A list of free editing programs is provided on an attached document.
• Completed videos are to be uploaded to YouTube, with the link to the video emailed to k16committee@mass-saves.org no later than Thursday, 7:00 PM EST, March 1, 2012.
• All team members and those in the video must submit a Name and Image/Audio Release Form filled out in its entirety and signed by a parent or guardian (if under 18) to MFEC. This form states that MFEC may post the team members’ name and image/audio on the Internet. All documents will be submitted via scan and emailed to k16committee@mass-saves.org by the deadline.
• Upon submission of videos, the entrants agree that MFEC has the rights to use videos in any way deemed necessary.
• No material contained in the video can be copyright protected. http://www.youtube.com/t/howto_copyright

Judging Rules:

Level One

• Is the video, including title and credit, 3 minutes or less in length?
• Are any copyrighted materials used in the video?
• Is any portion of the video inappropriate or inaccurate?
• Did the student team complete all necessary forms (submission form, waiver/release form for each participant)?

Level Two

• Does the video make a clear connection to the topic “Needs and Wants”?
• Accuracy: Is the message in the video correct, on point, informative, and current?
• Persuasiveness: How well does the video draw in the listener and keep his/her interest?
• Creativity: Is the video original and something we haven’t seen before?
• Production: What is the overall quality of production (including visual and sound elements)?

Level Three

• Popular vote: What is the number of votes the video received on www.masssaves.org during the public voting period?  (Note: Up to ten entries will be entered into the popular vote, number to be determined by the judging panel.)

Competition Timeline:

• Submission due date – Thursday, 7:00 PM EST, March 1, 2012.
• Top video submissions uploaded to www.masssaves.org  – April 2, 2012.
• Public voting on www.massaves.org – Monday, 10:00 AM EST, April 2 - Friday, 7:00 PM EST, April 27, 2012.
• Winning teams announced during the last day of Financial Literacy Month – Monday, April 30, 2012 on www.masssaves.org.
• Top three teams receive recognition and awards – June 2012 (specific date TBD)

*MFEC K-16 Committee reserves the right to cancel the Middle School “Needs and Wants” Video Competition at any time.