PILOT TEST IN PROGRESS — this pilot ends Friday, June 14, 2026 at 5:00 PM (US Eastern). The full Challenge may launch in 2026–2027 if it can be funded and staffed.
Open to Students Worldwide

The NetSciEd Challenge

Choose a network that interests you. Explore it. Visualize it. Then create something new with AI. Every entry becomes part of a living graph — a network of networks.

How It Works

Six questions that take you from observation to creation.

New to networks? Any word with a dotted underline can be tapped for a quick, plain-language explanation.
1 Concept 1

Name & Describe Your Network

Give your submission a title and describe the you've chosen in no more than 250 words. It can be any network — social, biological, technological, ecological, or something entirely unexpected.

2 Concept 4

Visualize It

Create a visualization of your network. This must be your own work — a drawing, photograph, illustration, diagram, or video still. No online images. No AI-generated images.

3 Concept 2

Identify the Nodes

Explain what the (the things, the entities) of your network are. What are the individual elements that make up the network?

4 Concept 2

Identify the Edges

Explain what the (the , the relationships) of your network are. How do the nodes relate to each other?

5 Concept 3

What Surprised You?

What was surprising to you when you viewed your topic as a network? What did you see differently? What emerged?

6 AI Literacy

Create with AI

Now use any AI tool to create something new inspired by your network and your answers. It could be a visualization, a poem, a simulation, an app — anything. Share a link to what you made.

What Happens to Your Entry

When you submit, something remarkable happens. Your entry is automatically analyzed and added to a live graph database powered by Neo4j AuraDB. Your network becomes a . Your school becomes a node. The Network Literacy concepts you demonstrated become nodes. And all the connections between them become edges.

The competition itself is a network — a growing, living network of networks submitted by students around the world. You can explore the graph and the world map to see how your entry connects to others.

Questions 1–5 go live on the graph immediately. Question 6 (your AI creation) is reviewed by a human before it appears publicly.

Your student name and email are never displayed publicly. Entries are identified by their submission title, school, and grade.

Ready to explore a network?

Read the full rules, then submit your entry. It takes about 30 minutes.

Read the Rules Submit Entry →