New York Times Podcast Contest Shows Teens Love The Medium.

The New York Times’ fourth annual podcast contest for teens fostered a record number of submissions, with more than 1,500 entries. The newspaper invited teenagers to create an original audio program, 5 minutes or less, about anything they wanted. “Using a range of podcasting formats and techniques, including storytelling, interviews and archival sound clips, these middle and high school students informed, inspired and entertained our judges using only a few minutes of thoughtfully produced audio,” the Times said.

It honored 12 winners, 13 runners-up and 29 honorable mentions. Winning topics included an undercover investigation of internet extremism, an exploration of how people use boxing to cope with Parkinson’s disease, a dive into the racist history of square dancing, Asian fetishization and a personal narrative about growing up with alopecia areata.

The winning entrants included:

• #beautifulthewayIam by Riyana Goel, 13, Kennedy Middle School, Cupertino, CA

• OREOntation by Yasmine Ware, 17, Madison Central High School, Madison, MS

• Veggies Hallelujah! by Adeline Daab, 17, Walter Payton College Prep, Chicago

• Trauma for Sale by Michelle Yu and Sarah Malik, Hunter College High School, New York

• Is This Green Space Too White? Environmental Equity in Rock Creek Park by Arielle Kouyoumdjian, 14,Nysmith School, Herndon, VA

• We Explored Internet Extremism So You Won’t Have To by Emily Zhang, Sophia Shin and Matthew Suescun, Bergen County Academies, Hackensack, NJ

• Punching Out Parkinson’s: How People Use Boxing to Cope with Parkinson’s Disease by Gabe Gottesman, 17, Mercer Island High School, Mercer Island, WA

• The Hidden Hate of a Wholesome Dance by Susanna Swidey and Margot Madison, Newton South High School, Newton, MA

• Divided Between Quotients by Sarah Gorbatov, 15, The Idea School, Tenafly, NJ

• Asian Fetishization, Past and Present by Caroline Gao, Tracy Huang, Spencer Madsen, 16, and Ella Meyer, West Albany High School, Albany, OR

• The Teens Fighting Against the Philippine Drug War by Arya Vohra, Hanmin Lee and Khush Jammu, United World College of South East Asia Dover, Singapore

• The Winston Churchill Debate — Should We Celebrate a Racist War Hero? by Swayam Tripathy, 16,United World College of South East Asia East Campus, Singapore

See runners-up HERE.