Deadline: January 16, 2026
Applications are open for the Climate Cardinals x ChallengeUS Future Leaders Competition – Winter 2025. The ChallengeUS Future Leaders Competition aims to critically engage and amplify youth voices from all over the world in civic ideas and challenges. The competition seeks to find, spotlight, and reward promising future leaders through scholarship prizes and award recognition. For this summer cycle, Climate Cardinals and ChallengeUS are partnering together to ask students to share how they approach climate.
Participation in the Climate Cardinals x ChallengeUS Future Leaders Competition offers the opportunity to join the ChallengeUS Future Leaders Network (global community of young changemakers), secure cash prizes that can be put towards educational and professional pursuits and gain public recognition for exceptional work.
Competition Prompt
Share a key moment, lesson, observation, or analysis that has shaped how you approach climate action. How will you use these insights to pursue the climate goals you care about most?
Categories
Participants are welcomed and encouraged to submit entries to multiple categories (creative writing, analytical writing, speech, and art) in order to maximize chances at winning. However, winning contestants will only be awarded recognized in ONE category.
- Creative Writing: Entries might include personal narratives, reflections, stories, poems, written speeches, memoirs, and other personal essays that address the prompt while showcasing the writer’s critical thinking, personal expression, and storytelling abilities. The emphasis is on originality, personal voice, and engaging the reader with thoughtful insight as well as emotional depth.
- Analytical Writing: Entries might include argumentative essays, research papers, literature reviews, case studies, and other forms of academic writing that uses sources and citations to drive key insights. Submissions are expected to present well-researched, evidence-based essays that address the prompt. The emphasis is on logical reasoning, structured analysis, and the ability to support answers to the prompt with facts, examples, or data.
- Speech: Entries might include any form of verbal speech or presentation submitted in a video form. Speakers are welcomed to use creative and/or analytical techniques in their speech submission. Visual aids are permitted but the emphasis will be on effective verbal communication while providing unique perspectives, ideas, and insights addressing the prompt.
- Art: Entries might include drawings, paintings, digital artworks, photographs, mixed media pieces, cartoons, magazine covers and other forms of artistic media, whether digital or traditional. Submissions should be original works, be made with effort, and follow the prompt. The emphasis is on interpretation of theme, creativity, and demonstrated skill.
Prizes
- One Best Overall “Grand Prize Winner” will be recognized along with four “Category Winner” honorable mentions (one from each submission category). This means 4 students, in total, will be recognized.
- The Grand Prize Winner will be awarded $500 USD
- The Grand Prize Winner and the Category Winners will be spotlighted in a biographical article by ChallengeUS
- The Grand Prize Winner and the Category Winners will receive a Certificate of Achievement and their submissions will be published by ChallengeUS
- All participants will gain access to the global ChallengeUS Future Leaders Network
Eligibility
- Any student, residing in any country, currently enrolled in an accredited high school or undergraduate college/university, is eligible to participate.
- Students taking academic gap years or semesters are also eligible.
- Students that are homeschooled are also eligible.
- Submissions (speech or writing) must be in English.
- Participants from previous competition cycles are eligible to enter the current competition cycle, except those that won first place in any previous ChallengeUS competitions.
- Any use of AI or plagiarism is strictly prohibited and will result in automatic disqualification.
Guidelines
Creative Writing
- Word Limit: 1250 words
- Writing submissions should be in PDF format with a readable font size (11 or 12 pt.) and a professional font style (Times New Roman, Arial)
- Entries might include personal narratives, reflections, stories, poems, written speeches, memoirs, and other personal essays that address the prompt while showcasing the writer’s critical thinking, personal expression, and storytelling abilities
Analytical Writing
- Word Limit: 1250 words
- Writing submissions should be in PDF format with a readable font size (11 or 12 pt.) and a professional font style (Times New Roman, Arial)
- If research is incorporated, any citation style (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.) will be accepted and citations will not count towards the word limit
Speech
- Speech Limit: 10 minutes
- Speech submissions should be in MP4 format
- High audio and video quality is expected
- Entries might include any form of verbal speech or presentation submitted in a video form. Visual aids are permitted but speech quality will be the foremost evaluation criteria
Art
- Art submissions should be in PDF, JPEG or PNG format
- High image quality is expected
- Entries might include any form of visual art including drawings, paintings, photographs, digital artworks, mixed media pieces, magazine covers, cartoons, and other forms of both traditional and digital artwork.
Application
Apply by category:
For more information, visit Future Leaders Competition.
