The Barbara Petchenik Award was created by the International Cartographic Association in 1993 as a memorial for Barbara Petchenik, a past Vice president of the ICA and cartographer who worked through her life with maps related to children. The aim of the contest is to promote the creative representation of the world in graphic form by children.
The awards are given every two years during an ICA conference or an ICA general assembly, preferably at least one for each continent, with special consideration to the age of the child producing the drawing. The awarded drawings are submitted to UNICEF for consideration as greeting cards. Participating nations are encouraged to report on the ways they have used for collecting drawing (video report, etc.) and to collect and archive maps for further research.

Objective of the competition

The aims of the competition are to promote children's creative representation of the world, to enhance their cartographic awareness and to make them more conscious of their environment.

Rules of the competition

• ICA member nations will collect maps, on the theme "Many Nations, One World", produced by children under 16 years of age. This is the theme for the next two conferences.
• The international judging will focus on three criteria: 1) a recognizable message, 2) cartographic content, and 3) the quality of execution.

1. a recognizable connection between the form, shape, and use of cartographic elements which creatively address the Competition's theme.
2. a recognizable image of all or a large portion of the world in which the shapes and relative locations of land masses and oceans are as correct as can reasonably be expected for the child's age and within the context of the "system of projection" used.
3. appropriate cartographic elements such as symbols, colors, names and labels, etc., which help address the Competition's theme.
   - clarity and legibility of the point, line and area symbols appropriate to the media of expression, whether on paper or other surfaces, whether drawn or made up of indigenous materials.
   - expressive rendering and appropriate use of the perceptual dimensions of color, i.e., changes in value for quantitative distinctions and changes in hue for qualitative distinctions.
   - overall aesthetic quality in such matters as balance and harmony among the image elements.

• The maximum size of a map must not exceed A3 (420 mm x 297 mm or 17 x 11 inches). Any number of "systems of projection" can be used to generate the coastlines and other base material (e.g., international boundaries and graticule). These can include tracing or copying an existing world map or using a computer program.
• Each map must have the following information on a label attached to the back side of the representation: the name, age, school address and country of its author, and the title in either English or French as well as in the author's language.
• The winning entries will be submitted to the UNICEF International Art Committee by the ICA Executive for consideration as greeting card designs. ICA may use them as well. Any participant agrees that his/her representation may be reproduced by ICA or UNICEF or scanned for publication on the Internet by Carleton University without consultation or copyright fees.
• Competition maps are archived at Carleton University's Map Library and are being prepared for web viewing (see http://collections.ic.gc.ca/children).

• Each member nation must nominate a coordinator to run the contest in his/her country.
• The name of the coordinator must be received by the ICA Secretary General at least one year prior to the submission date of map entries. Countries in which no national coordinator is identified may participate provided that the Executive receives the name of a country member willing to act as the coordinator for that country.
• Each national committee will select a maximum of five maps to be forwarded to the ICA Secretary General. For the purposes of the national competition, criteria other than those used for the international competition may be considered. The maps selected by the national committees must be sent to the ICA Secretary General and not to the Conference site. They will be displayed during the 23 ^th International Cartographic Conference of the International Cartographic Association in Moscow, Russia, August 4-10, 2007.
• When submitting their selected entries to the ICA Secretary General, national bodies are requested to include a letter which, for each submission, gives the following information: the name, age, school address and country of its author, and the title in either English or French (the ICA's official languages) as well as in the author's language.
• All entries to the ICA Secretary General must have a label attached to the back side of the representation which includes the name, age, school address and country of its author, and the title in either English or French (the ICA's official languages) as well as the author's language.

ICA Secretariat
c/o Faculty of Geographic Sciences
Utrecht University
P.O. Box 80115
3508 TC Utrecht
The Netherlands

• National bodies are responsible for distributing the certificates awarded by the ICA Executive. These certificates will be produced and provided by the ICA Executive.
• Participating nations are encouraged to collect and archive all of the entries in their national competitions and to report to the Commission on their methods of announcing the competition, establishing any other judging criteria, and the selection process used. This information will be of value in evaluating the success of the Competition and in making adjustments in the future.

• The ICA Executive will send a copy of the Rules of the Competition to each national coordinator.
• The ICA Executive will acknowledge receipt of each country's submission.
• Prior to both conferences, the ICA Executive will establish a judging committee, of optimally five members, made up of representatives of the Cartography and Children Commission, the ICA Executive, and the Local Organizing Committee.
• The ICA Executive will make available to the judging committee a copy of the letter submitted by each national coordinator that accompanied and described his/her country's submission.
• From five to fifteen awards will be given, with a maximum of one per country. Preferably one award will be given to each continent and at least one to children in each of the three age groups; under 9 years, 9 to 12 years, and 13-15 years of age.
• If the ICA Conference Organizing Committee is interested in having and advertising a public vote on the Competition entries they should be allowed to do so on three conditions:

1. that the public vote will not be a criteria for or influence on the ICA judges because the voting public will likely have no knowledge or appreciation of the Competition rules and guidelines;
2. that the voting slip design be adjudicated by the Cartography and Children Commission, on behalf of the ICA Executive, so that its intent is clear; and
3. that the Local Organizing Committee be responsible for producing the Public Award certificate.

• The results of the judging should normally be conveyed to the ICA Executive on the last day of the paper sessions.
• The production of the awards certificate and its distribution to the appropriate national representatives is the responsibility of the ICA Executive. The national representatives are, in turn, responsible for conveying the certificates to the awardees.
• The work of each national coordinator should be acknowledged by a letter from the ICA Executive.
• Following competition, all the displayed national maps will be deposited by the ICA.

View the competition entries at  http://collections.ic.gc.ca/children/
the 2005 prizes at http://children.library.carleton.ca/cgi-bin/childmap/wn_result.php?Winners=2005+Competition,
and the 2003 prizes at http://children.library.carleton.ca/cgi-bin/childmap/wn_result.php?Winners=2003+Competition