A third grader from Rabbit Creek Elementary School in Anchorage is Alaska’s winner in the 15th annual Doodle for Google nationwide art competition.
In January, Google asked K-12 students across the country to create a doodle showing their wish for the next 25 years. Lennex Czajkowski’s won for her piece titled “For the World not to be Polluted.” She learned she had won at an assembly Wednesday with her third grade classmates.
“I drew a bee pollinating the flower and the earth,” Czajkowski said.
The 55 state and territory winners were announced Wednesday, but voting in the nationwide contest is open until June 4. Czajkowski said she sees pollution along the side of the road.
“I thought to myself what would I not want to happen to the earth, and I went from there,” she said.
Lennex’ mother, Adrean Czajkowski, said she had known for about a month, and had to keep the secret from her daughter.
“I’m really proud,” Adrean Czajkowski said. “It’s something that she came up with, from the concept and the drawing and everything all on our own. She came to us and said ‘here, Mom, look what I did.’”
Contest judges will select five finalists and one grand prize winner, who will take home a $55,000 college scholarship and $50,000 worth of supplies and technology for their school.
Each of the five other national finalists will receive a $5,000 scholarship. Czajkowski is competing against 11 other K-3 grade students.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled Czajkowski.
Tim Rockey is the producer of Alaska News Nightly and covers education for Alaska Public Media. Reach him at trockey@alaskapublic.org or 907-550-8487. Read more about Tim here.
