Crossword Puzzle Drawing Rules

Correctly complete the Seeds of Change crossword to be eligible for an ISD hoodie!

Official Rules

Submit a highly legible photo of your handwritten completed puzzle by email to zine@isdedu.de by midnight, CET, 19 June, 2026. Late submissions will not be accepted.

“Highly legible” will be determined by the judges. If you don’t know what that means, look it up.

Correctly answered submissions will be entered into a random drawing to be held June 24 at the International School of Düsseldorf.

Students worldwide grade 12 or below are eligible to participate. Because the puzzle has been embargoed, students and teachers at ISD are also eligible, excluding the three puzzle testers. We use "embargoed" in the media publication sense, which you can also look up.

One submission per student. Efforts to flood our inbox with what the judges, at their sole discretion, deem to be duplicate submissions, may result in all entires from that email domain, IP address, or country being disqualified.

The judges panel is comprised of the adult members of the Seeds of Change advisory board & staff, plus one goat.

The winning student can pick up their ISD hoodie at the event. A winner unable to participate in person will be notified by email and (unfortunately) must arrange shipping at their own expense (sorry).

Knowing that the world is as it is, the use of AI in solving this puzzle is not prohibited.

The above notwithstanding, if the judges determine through their infinite wisdom that AI was used in solving the puzzle, winners may be required to jump on one foot while singing the AI Zombie Apocalypse Song, which goes as follows:

I asked the AI to help me write,

It seemed so easy, pure delight!

“Just one small task,” I said with glee,

Then let it think in place of me.

I stopped recalling, stopped the strain,

And slowly, sweetly, fried my brain.

Why puzzle hard when AI’s there?

I outsourced thought without a care.

Now robots code and robots cook,

They write the emails, draft the book.

I wasn’t qualified? Oh well!

The algorithm does it swell.

So here I stand on one left foot,

My neural pathways filled with soot,

Hopping while the robots thrive

At least I’m still (mostly) alive.