Mar Hernandez for NPR

From Hawaii to Maryland and from Illinois to Texas, from investigative reporting to in-depth interviews, thousands of young people have once again turned their thoughts and ideas into audio, and NPR's judges have selected from them the best student podcasts in America.

For the seventh year of the Student Podcast Challenge , we received nearly 2,000 entries from 45 states and the District of Columbia. Among the topics on the minds of middle and high schoolers this year were: AI and its expanding role in classrooms, immigration and its effects on their own communities, and interviews with family members and loved ones.

Some students produced highly journalistic entries: The podcasting club in a Southern California elementary school reported on how the devastating P

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