Calling all student storytellers: NPR's Student Podcast Challenge is back for 2026. As always, we're looking to award prizes to the best middle school and high school podcasts in America — but we have an additional special prize this year:

To mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, send us podcasts that explore what the phrase, "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" means to you.

For this special challenge, our judges will be listening for stories that look back at historical events, take us to historic places, or that explore what it means to be an American. Stories of innovation, of rights and protest, arts and culture, civic engagement and governance, or personal narratives or beliefs.

In other words, the full range of the American experience.

Just to

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