The Blue Peter Earthshot Competition Rules
*THIS COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED*
The Blue Peter Earthshot Competition
Blue Peter is giving you the amazing opportunity to become the next generation of young inventors, problem solvers and change makers and be recognised by His Royal Highness, Prince William’s prestigious Earthshot Prize.
The Earthshot Prize has identified five important areas that need your help: Fix our Climate, Protect and Restore Nature, Clean our Air, Revive our Oceans and Build a Waste-free World.
To enter the Blue Peter Earthshot Competition we want you to come up with an original idea to address at least one of these areas. All you have to do is write down your idea (in under 200 words); describe what it looks like, how it can be used and what benefit it could bring to the planet. Your idea should be accompanied by a drawing or poster to really bring it to life.
The five winners will each attend a VIP filming experience with Blue Peter and be awarded with a winner’s certificate. You will also receive a copy of the Earthshot book “A Handbook for Dreamers and Thinkers, Solutions to Repair our Planet” and an orange competition winner’s badge.
To enter the Blue Peter Earthshot Competition please read the rules below. This competition is open for entries from 5pm Friday 6th September 2024 and will close at 5pm on Monday 28th October 2024.
Rules for The Blue Peter Earthshot Competition
1. The Blue Peter Earthshot Competition (the "Competition") is open to all UK residents (including residents of the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man) aged between 5 and 15 years of age on Monday 28th October 2024 (the closing date of the competition) except the children or close relatives of BBC Group employees, or any persons closely connected with Blue Peter, or The Earthshot Prize. The BBC reserves the right to request proof of age for entrants as well as parent's or guardian's permission to enter. Only one entry per person may be submitted. No joint entries will be allowed. At Blue Peter, we welcome entries from children of all abilities and needs.
2. To enter the Competition entrants must:
Write down your planet helping idea in no more than 200 words;
This should be accompanied by a drawing, design or poster;
Tell us which of the five Earthshot categories you think your solution could help (you can choose more than one);
Go to the Blue Peter website to fill in your details and upload your entry, or download and print the entry form; and
Have parent/guardian’s permission to enter the Competition.
3. The Blue Peter Earthshot Prize Competition is open from 5pm on Friday 6th September 2024 and will close at 5pm on Monday 28th October 2024. Entry is via post or online:
To enter online the CBBC uploader can be accessed from the Blue Peter website. You will need a BBC account to enter, which means you have a username and password you can use to sign in to the CBBC website; OR
You can enter by printing the entry form, filling in the relevant information, writing your words in the space provided, drawing your picture in the space provided or attaching your artwork, and then put in an envelope with the correct postage and posting to: The Blue Peter Earthshot Competition, 1st Floor Bridge House, MediaCityUK, Salford, M50 2DH
4. The ideas must be all the entrant’s own work with no use of pre-existing brand names, and must not infringe any third party rights.
5. If more than one entry is received from an entrant, we will accept the first entry received and disregard the others. Only one entry per person may be submitted. No joint entries will be allowed.
6. The entrant and parent/guardian will need to submit all the information requested in the entry form and as set out in the Privacy Notice including a telephone number which must allow us to contact the parent/guardian between Tuesday 5th November – Monday 11th November 2024. Entrants will need their parent/guardian’s permission to enter the Competition and ensure that they have read the rules.
7. Entries must be received by no later than 5pm Monday 28th October 2024. Late entries will be disqualified. The BBC cannot take any responsibility for any technical failure or malfunction, or for any postal service issues and/or strikes, which may result in an entry being delayed, or not properly registered or recorded.
8. By submitting an entry for the Competition, the entrant’s parent/guardian are deemed to have given permission for the entry to be created and published free of charge by the BBC Group, The Earthshot Prize and Kensington Palace in all media, including television, print and internet, for all purposes as it wishes. Blue Peter, the BBC and The Earthshot Prize may wish to display entries containing an entrant’s forename, age and town or county, in all the above instances working in line with the BBC Child Protection Policy, to prevent jigsaw identification of any entrant.
The BBC's conditions on contributions apply to the Competition rules.
Entry is subject to the BBC’s Terms of Use.
9. For editorial reasons, it is necessary for the BBC to acquire ownership of all rights in the winning piece of text and design. It is a condition of entry that the winner’s parent/guardian will sign any additional documentation to assign all rights to the BBC and to waive all moral rights the winner may have in the winning text. If you have any concerns about this requirement, we advise you not to enter.
10. At Blue Peter, we welcome entries from children of all abilities and needs. All entries will be judged in the first instance by members of the Blue Peter production team, the BBC and The Earthshot Prize. This first judging panel will decide which entries should be put forward to the second stage of judging. The first judging round will select the 45 best entries.
Ideas are judged in each of the following age categories:
Category 1: Entrants aged 5-8
Category 2: Entrants aged 9-11
Category 3: Entrants aged 12-15
11. 45 verified entries in total (15 in each age category) will go through from the first round of judging to the second round of judging.
12. The second judging stage will look at finding the best entries for each Earthshot category (45 entries in total) and be carried out by a judging panel of representatives from Blue Peter, the BBC and The Earthshot Prize (Ellen Evans, Editor of Blue Peter as Head Judge). There will be five overall winners, one for each of the Earthshot categories (Protect & Restore Nature, Clean our Air, Revive our Oceans, Build a Waste Free World, Fix our Climate).
In the final stage the judges are looking for the most interesting and original ideas for solutions, so the final 5 winners can come from any age category, meaning that there may be more than one winner from each age group.
Criteria
13. All entries will be judged against the following criteria:
DO
Think about an environmental problem that you care about.
Try and identify a specific problem and what you see as the solution to helping fix that problem in the real-world.
Describe your planet helping idea in as much detail as you can and why you think it could make the world a better place.
Think about an idea about how we might protect wildlife on land and care for natural habitats.
Or an innovation that could help clean our air, maybe greener transport, or cleaner energy
Or an invention that could help to revive our oceans and rivers, reduce waste, protect biodiversity
Or a design that could help us to reduce waste, reuse, recycle, repurpose, or think differently about food waste
Or think up an imaginative way to reduce pollution and greenhouse gases
Be inspiring, be inclusive, be impactful.
Be bold and make your visual design as eye-catching as possible – show us how you want it to work.
Your design must be original and you must use your own words.
Make the design age appropriate to the Blue Peter audience, aged from 5-15.
Send your entry via The Blue Peter Website uploader or by using a postal service.
DON’T
Use brand names or other third-party ideas.
Use someone else’s words and/or pictures – this must be your own original work
Copy existing inventions, designs, technology or initiatives.
Write more than 200 words. The judging panel will only read the first 200 words of any submission.
Use generative AI to create or develop any part of your entry.
The prizes
14. The prizes consist of:
1st Prize: 5 Winners
You (and one parent or guardian) will have the opportunity to attend VIP filming with Blue Peter and the Earthshot Prize where you will be announced as winner of the competition during one of our weekly shows and/or as part of our subsequent winners’ experience filming.
You will receive an Orange Blue Peter competition winner’s badge.
You will receive An Earthshot Champion certificate from The Earthshot Prize and HRH The Prince of Wales
You will receive a copy of the Earthshot book “A Handbook for Dreamers and Thinkers, Solutions to Repair our Planet.”
Top 45:
The top 45 designs that go through to the second round of judging receive an Orange Blue Peter competition winner's badge
You will receive An Earthshot Champion certificate from The Earthshot Prize and HRH The Prince of Wales
15. The BBC will obtain an appropriate child licence for the winners if needed. Reasonable travel, food, accommodation costs will be provided by the BBC for the winning children and one parent or guardian to attend Blue Peter for the announcement of the winners and filming. The winners will be deemed to have agreed to be filmed during their day in studio and on location by the Blue Peter Production team. The parent/guardian of the winners will be required to sign contributor consent forms on behalf of their child/ward and themselves to allow the BBC to use the contributions in all media for all purposes.
16. Telephone calls will be made to the short-listed and stand-by parent/guardians between Tuesday 5th November – Monday 11th November to check eligibility. If an entrant is unable to be contacted after reasonable attempts have been made to do so, the BBC reserves the right to offer their place to the next best entrant. Unsuccessful entrants will not be contacted. Entries cannot be returned to entrants.
17. The prizes are as stated. The prizes cannot be transferred and there is no cash alternative.
18. The winners and runners-up will be notified from Wednesday 13th November 2024 onwards by telephone, as per the contact details provided in their entry. In the event of the winners being unable to be contacted, after reasonable attempts have been made, or being unable to attend filming, or if the winners are found to be in breach of the rules or fails to take up their prize for any reason including illness, unavailability, problems in having consent for absence from school, licensing difficulties or problems with obtaining a sign off from their doctor regarding state of health to participate, the BBC reserves the right to offer the prize to a runner-up who will be ranked in order of merit but it is not obliged to do so.
19. The BBC's and the judges' decision as to the winner is final. No correspondence relating to the Competition will be entered into.
20. Entrants will be expected to take part in post-Competition publicity for the BBC and The Earthshot Prize.
21. The BBC reserves the right to (i) cancel the Competition or change any of these rules at any stage, if deemed necessary in its opinion, or if circumstances arise outside of its control, (ii) disqualify any entrant who breaches these rules, has acted fraudulently in any way or has brought the BBC into disrepute or (iii) withhold a prize if, in its opinion, entries do not reach the required standard. Any such changes will be duly communicated. The BBC cannot be held responsible for any unforeseen events relating to, or the cancellation of any related element of this Competition outside of the control of the BBC.
22. The parent/guardian of an entrant is deemed to have accepted these rules and when giving permission to the entry of the relevant entrant.
23. The competition complies with the BBC Code of Conduct for Competitions and Voting.
24. The BBC, Blue Peter, The Earthshot Prize and any other organisation associated with the Competition accepts no liability for any damage, loss, liabilities (including direct, indirect, incidental, consequential or punitive damage) injury or disappointment incurred or suffered by you as a result of entering the Competition, not being able to enter into the Competition or accepting any of the prizes. Nothing shall exclude the liability of the above parties for (i) fraud, (ii) for death or personal injury as a result of that party's negligence, or (iii) any other cause of action which cannot be limited or excluded under applicable law. In no event shall the BBC and/or any other organisation associated with the Competition’s total liability to you for all damages, losses, or causes of action exceed the price of the relevant prize.
25. If any of these clauses should be determined to be illegal, invalid, or otherwise unenforceable then it shall be severed and deleted from these rules and the remaining clauses shall survive, remain in full force and effect.
26. The BBC reserves the right to terminate and revoke the prize if these rules and the BBC Safeguarding Policy are not adhered to.
27. These rules shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any claim, dispute or matter arising under or in connection with these rules.
28. Blue Peter is a production created by BBC Studio Kids and Family Productions Ltd.