This year 1,200 students submitted entries to the National Peace Essay Contest—while thousands more participated in related writing and other classroom exercises in high schools around the country.

Over the years, more than 1,300 state winners have participated in the Washington Awards Week. Many of these "alumni" have gone on to study foreign policy issues in college, or have pursued careers in international affairs.

How do we select participants for the Washington program? Each January, hundreds of essays from students around the country—and American schools abroad—arrive here at the Institute, starting the process of selecting a new group of state essay contest winners. Each essay is carefully reviewed and scored by a series of panels made up of Institute staff and educators from around the country. These scores are then totaled and reviewed by another panel, which selects the state winners and honorable mentions for each state.

Each state winner wins a $1,000 scholarship for their future college studies and an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C. to participate in our special June awards program. In addition, each state winner qualifies for a chance to compete for the first-place national scholarship award of $10,000, as well as second-and third-place scholarships of $5,000 and $2,500, respectively.

Currently, the Institute's Peace Essay Contest staff is hard at work preparing an exciting program for all the state winners during their week in Washington. Activities scheduled so far include:

• a challenging three-day simulation or "game" focusing on Chechnya
• meetings with distinguished foreign policy scholars and public officials in Congress and the Administration
• opportunities to visit historic national monuments and museums here in the nation's capital
• as the culmination of the week's program, an awards banquet where all of the state winners will be honored and the national winners announced

Each year a program agenda is carefully designed by the Institute's Education Program to expose the participating students to the nature and processes of international peacemaking through a series of activities related to that year's essay theme. The program immerses the students in the history, politics, and culture of the region, giving them the background needed for their participation in the simulation later in the week.

You might look at last year's Washington program agenda or watch the short video of NPEC 1999-2000 State Winners Sara Loubriel-Carrion of Puerto Rico and Thomas Tsai of Texas speaking about the group's week in Washington.

Each year the Institute creates this special section on the website for state winners and their teachers, friends, and family to help them get a sense of what their trip to Washington will be like. The website is updated daily during Awards Week, so please check back during the week of June 21–26 to see information and photos of the students during their adventures in Washington.