Open source projects provide numerous and widely varied opportunities for students to be active participants in the creation of real world, widely used software, whether as developers, documenters or in other ways. The Google Highly Open Participation Contest highlighted this through the participation of hundreds of 13 to 18 year olds in ten major open source projects. After describing the nature of open source communities, the presenter will share her experiences with the contest, including lessons on how to encourage successful and meaningful student engagement in open source projects.CS&IT Symposium 2008Teachers (Professional Development)none