This week the Online News Association announced winners of the ONA 2014-15 Challenge Fund grants. This program supports journalism schools in seeding collaborative news experiments in living labs: their communities. These projects could provide useful examples, and perhaps function in partnership with, other local news/engagement efforts.

Each of the 12 winning universities will receive a $35,000 microgrant in the first round of the $1M Challenge Fund for Innovation in Journalism Education.

Some of this year's winning schools and projects (described in tweet format) are:

• Arizona State University, Finding the Middle Ground: "Public engagement tools can influence coverage and change the conversation -- even on an issue as contentious as guns."
• CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, Hack the Mold: "@CUNYjschool & @NYDailyNews crowdsource mold scourge in public housing to bring action, #accountability"
• Florida International University, Sea Level Rise South Florida: "Always live hyperlocal sea level rise news and mobile info. How does SLR impact where you live? #SLRSoFla #crowdhydrology"

See full list of winners.

In the coming year, follow the journey of these schools to hack their curriculum through live news experiments. Winners will be featured on the ONA website throughout the year.

Applications for next year's ONA Challenge Grants are expected to open in late 2014.