This issue of Water Environment Research (WER) contains another" first" as it includes four papers by participants in the 2003 US National Competition for the Stockholm Junior Water Prize (SJWP). The SJWP, the most prestigious international youth award for high school science research, aims to increase students' interest in water-related issues and research and sensitize them, as future leaders, to global water challenges. The competition welcomes theoretical and applied science studies as well as projects targeted at solving community water problems. However, all projects, which may focus on local, regional, national, or global topics, must use a research-oriented approach, that is, scientifically accepted methodologies for experimentation, monitoring, and reporting the results, including statistical analyses.

After individual state competitions, 36 students were selected by Water Environment Federation (WEF) Member Associations to represent their respective states in a US National Competition held in Irving, Texas, in June 2003. Heather Mispagel of Georgia was the winner of this competition and went on to Stockholm, Sweden, to compete in the international competition in August 2003. The other three competitors published in this issue (Kiana Frank of Hawaii, Vijay Yanamadala of California, and Sean Raj of Texas) were finalists in the US competition.