The Internet is considered by some a place of endless informational junk and games - a toxic wasteland of useless data and destructive computer viruses.
But not for seniors Chad Peterson and Brandan Schulze. These two internet-wise computer buffs are developing an educational web page for the internet contest Think Quest '97.
"The whole Think Quest project is to get students to acquire a bunch of knowledge through research and then share that with the rest of the world through the internet by creating web pages or some type of a program which they've written that will teach," said Peterson.
Think Quest is a world-wide project and was designed to encourage students from different schools, backgrounds and countries to work together in teams to create valuable educational tools on the internet.
Science and mathematics, arts and literature, social sciences, sports and health and interdisciplinary are the contest's five categories.
"We're planning on doing the project on dreams," said Peterson. "Our page would probably fall under the social sciences category because it's dealing with the dreams and interpretation. I myself have always been really interested in dreaming and the dreams themselves.
"Everybody dreams, and there's a lot you can learn from them."
More than $1 million in scholarships is a large incentive for teenagers to enter the contest, yet participants are aware that the contest is very competitive.
"I could probably safely say that there are hundreds of entries," said Peterson.
First through fifth place prizes ranging from $20,000 to $5,000 are awarded to winners in each of the five categories.
"Quite a bit of work is involved in this," said Peterson. "The initial part of it isn't too much work. It's just a short essay that describes exactly what it is we're going to try to accomplish by doing this and how it's going to appeal to the largest amount of people possible. If they accept our application, then there's a lot of work ahead of us because we'll have to create the page.
"It has to be a real in-depth thing, more like a novel where you've got a long ways to go through it but it has to be able to jump back and touch on all the categories."
Coaches and team members of varying ages are required for the team. Peterson and Schulze are coached by Jennifer Day of Arizona.
The initial proposal for the project is due on Feb. 28. If the application is accepted, the final project must be completed by July 31 in order for the team to be eligible for scholarships.
"We have to do all the research for the dreams and we want to have a page where we can type in elements that were in your dreams and then it will tell you what that means," said Schulze. "We're going to do some stuff on nightmares and we're going to do some stuff on how to remember your dreams.
"Dreams can be used to solve a lot of problems," said Schulze. "If you know what they mean."