This Xmas, students across the world can take part in a global educational competition, to find out where thousands of products like consumer goods come from.

So they'll be looking closely at Country Of Origin Labelling, or COOL- as in COOLXmas! The competition will run from 30th November 2009 until 31st January 2010.

There is a home page at www.coolxmas.org.

The event is being run by Made In Nations, a global country of origin resource for consumer goods, and its partners Find US Made, Buy Made In Canada and others.

Schools and colleges taking part will be able to win a cash prize for submitting the most product data to each site.

The competition can be the basis of an educational project to help class discussions of country of origin issues, like CO2 emissions from transport and shipping, outsourcing and future employment, sustainable economies, and country of origin labelling.

Students will see the results of their research on these popular websites for everyone to access and make use of.

They might even decide to try and buy some presents this year from closer to home! There will also be a special YouTube channel featuring some of the students taking part.

Getting involved might also help students become more interested in careers in manufacturing, so they can become the designers and engineers responsible for some of the consumer goods we buy all year round- and especially at Xmas!

For more information, visit the global database www.madeinnations.com