FARMINGTON — Maine high school and college students who are ready for a cooking challenge are sought to compete in two national contests involving local foods.

The contests are part of a national program, Farm to School, which teaches students about and brings healthy food from local farms to schoolchildren. Farm to School developed from a desire to strengthen farms and support community-based food systems while improving student health. University of Maine Cooperative Extension educators are spreading the word to see if any Maine or Franklin County students want to participate.

The first of the two contests, “Cooking Up Change,” invites teams of three high school or college students to create a healthful but delicious school meal that includes a local food item. The dish also needs to meet high nutritional standards, feature ingredients commonly available to food services and be something that can easily be prepared in a school kitchen.

The three-person teams need to submit their recipes online by March 26. Three teams of finalists from each division, high school and college, will be invited to attend the fifth National Farm to Cafeteria conference, “Taking Root,”  in Detroit, Mich., in May, where they will prepare their meal to be judged.

Contest guidelines and information are available at www.cookingupchange.org.

The other contest is the “Real Food Is … 2010 National Video Contest,” which challenges students to define what real food means to them. Students are asked to create a short video that completes the phrase, “Real food is … .”

The contest challenges students to not only consider what real food means to them but also why school cafeterias should start or continue buying local food and how what foods are eaten affect the local culture, health, economy and environment.

This contest is open to K-12 and college students and runs until March 29. The public will vote online between March 29 and April 9, selecting video winners who will receive $1,000 and an all-expense-paid trip to the “Taking Root” conference in Detroit in May.

More information on the contest is available at video.farmtoschool.org.