Being held in the International Year of Biodiversity, the 15th edition of the Environment Olympiads will start with a reason to celebrate: the largest school participation since its first edition in 1994.
After the end of the registration period, it was possible to determine a total 724 school registrations distributed by the three categories comprised by this ambitious project. “The Millennium Development Goals” (Os Objectivos de Desenvolvimento do Milénio) will be the main theme throughout this edition.
The National Final will be held for the first time in an autonomous region in the city of Horta on Faial Island and it was organised in a partnership with the Regional Secretariat for the Environment and the Sea of the Government of Azores. 
Comprising three stages of assessment, the category “Environment in Competition” (Ambiente à Prova) registered the highest number of registration (580 schools). The first stage will take place at the schools participating in the event on January 14 at 2:30 PM (Mainland Portugal local time) and 1:30 PM (Azores local time).
Registering a total of 121 registrations, the category “Environment and Art” (Ambiente e Arte) aims to stimulate the participants' creativity by designing a poster that will be later used in the dissemination of the 16th edition of the project.
In the category “Environment and Citizenship” (Ambiente e Cidadadania), which registered 23 registrations, teachers are challenged to present their environmental projects that are being developed in their school communities.
This project, which brings together more than 30 thousand students from all over the country every year, has received the High Patronage of the Presidency of the Republic and it is supported by partnerships with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Águas de Algarve. The present edition is coordinated by a multidisciplinary team composed by members of Portuguese Catholic University, of Quercus - National Association for Nature Conservation and of Zoomarine.
 Since the first edition, a total of over 360 000 students have participated in the Environment Olympiads, making it one of the most robust and ambitious Environmental Education projects in Portugal.
Further information on the categories, calendar and organisation is available at: www.esb.ucp.pt/olimpiadas, through the following email ([email protected]) or telephone number (91 6897553).