National Sustainable
Design Expo
featuring EPA's
Judging Process for the P3 Awards and Associated Phase II Grant Awards
EPA has contracted with the American Association for the Advancement of Science
(AAAS) to convene a panel of judges who are leaders in the fields of engineering, water
science, green chemistry, agriculture, green building design, waste issues, energy issues
and sustainability to serve on the P3 Award Judges Panel. Selection of judges is based on
the issues addressed by the Phase I projects.
Judges will be provided with the Project Report Instructions, including the Evaluation
Crteria, when they are available. These will also be sent to the P3 teams and posted on
the "Information for P3 Teams" page on the P3 website.
Prior to attending the National Sustainable Design Expo, each wri tten P3 Project Report
will be reviewed by at least three judges, each of whom will prepare an individual written
evaluation based on the evaluation criteria. In addition, judges will provide a rating for
the written report based on the following scale:
Excellent: A truly outstanding proposal with numerous exceptional attributes.
Very Good: A very strong proposal with many noteworthy merits.
Good: A solid proposal but not among the best, may have some deficiencies.
Fair: Not a strong proposal.
Poor: A proposal with serious deficiencies.
All individual eval uations of the Project Reports will be submitted to the AAAS and
completed prior to attending the Expo
At the Expo, on either Friday (April 23rd) or Saturday (April 24th), two pairs of judges
will visit each P3 Team to receive an oral presentation of their Phase I project and their
Phase II proposal. The level of structure for that presentation is up to each P3 team. Every
attempt will be made to arrange for the judges to visit the P3 teams in pairs so each team
should plan for two judges' visits on Friday afternoon or Saturday at the Expo. The
judges will prepare and submit to AAAS individual written evaluations and a score (as
for the written Project Report) for each of the P3 Teams they interview at the Expo.
Please note, only one of the four judges who evaluate your team on-site at the Expo was
required to read your the submitted Project Report. (This is done so each project can be
evaluated by as many judges as possible.)
The schedule for the judges' visits to the P3 Teams will be prepared prior to the Expo,
emailed to the teams and posted on the P3 website. Please be sure to let us know if you
have any scheduling conflicts that may interfere with your ability to be present when your

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team is judged. Once the schedule is prepared, it is very difficult to make changes.
Please inform us of potential conflicts no later than Tuesday, March 23, 2010.
The Judges Panel will spend Sunday, April 25th, discussing the P3 projects and will
prepare a numerical ranking of P3 Teams which will be submitted to EPA by 3:00 PM
that day. This numerical ranking will equally weight the evaluation of the written Project
Reports and the oral presentations at the Expo. EPA will use this ranking, along with
information on available resources, balance of the research portfolio, overall program
goals and directions and other criteria or considerations deemed appropriate, to determine
which teams will receive the P3 Awards and Honorable Mentions. Final funding
decisions will be made by the EPA.
AAAS will arrange for Summary Evaluations to be prepared for each of the P3 Teams.
These summaries will capture the salient points from the seven individual evaluations
(the three evaluations of the written Project Report and the four evaluations from the
Expo visits) and present relevant items from the judges' panel discussions. These
Summary Evaluations will be distributed to the Faculty Advisor and student lead for each
P3 Team following the Expo by the EPA Project Officer, Cynthia Nolt-Helms.

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