ReadWriteWeb

For many of us, science fairs may conjure an image of the school gym, full of students showcasing their science projects - their hypotheses, their experiments, their data. But in part due to the financial constraints of both schools and families, these sorts of events are on the decline. The Google Science Fair, however, doesn't require poster boards and it doesn't require travel. It is, in fact, the first ever online global science fair. And any student (age 13 to 18) anywhere - as long as they have a computer, a browser and Internet access - can participate.

Wikipedia and Wikia co-founder Jimmy Wales has just joined the advisory board of CK-12 Foundation - a nonprofit organization that provides standards-aligned online textbooks to kindergarten to grade 12 students. One key element of the organization includes offering "FlexBooks" - a product that allows educators and students to create and edit their own open-content teaching materials. Users can add chapters to existing texts or create completely new material using the Flexr tool.