(Fast Company)  -- For years, employees at Google have suggested a project near and dear to their nerd hearts: a Google-led science fair. "It's come up over and over and over again," says Cristin Frodella, a senior product marketing manager in education at Google. After all, many a Googler has fond childhood memories of explaining the genius of his or her biology experiment to passersby in a school gym. (Frodella and her best friend trained hamsters to ask for food by ringing a bell.) Today those Googlers and budding scientists worldwide should be ecstatic. The company launched Google Science Fair, the first global online science competition. It's open to full-time students ages 13 to 18, who are encouraged to use the panoply of Google products to record and share their work.
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Google Science Fair is the first global online science competition
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Fair open to full-time students ages 13 to 18
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Prizes include a trip to the Galapagos Islands and $120,000 in scholarships
"We want to let kids use our online tools so they can participate from anywhere in world," Frodella tells @placeholder.