Earlier this spring, 4th grade students from Cherokee, MMCRU, Alta-Aurelia, and River Valley had an opportunity to participate in the Cherokee County Soil & Water Conservation District’s poster contest.
The theme of this year’s contest was “Healthy Forests = Healthy Communities”. Nick Livermore, District Conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and Laura Jones, Director and Naturalist for the Cherokee County Conservation Board, put together a video presentation for the students to watch rather than going into the schools this year. They started off by going over the rules of the poster contest and talking about how the posters will be judged. They explained how important trees are to people and animals. Trees produce food that we eat, provide shade, and produce oxygen through a process called photosynthesis. We use trees to make furniture, paper, pencils, and pain killers. Birds use trees to nest in and other animals use trees for shelter. Nick and Laura also talked about communities and the importance of using trees responsibly. Since it takes a long time for trees to grow we don’t want to cut down whole forests at a time, but instead cut down the older trees so that we can save some of the younger trees to use later after they get older.
Posters were judged on the following criteria: 50% for conservation message, 30% for visual effectiveness, 10% for originality, and 10% for universal appeal.
Cherokee SWCD Commissioner Ramona Nitz presented the first, second, and third place winners from each school with ribbons, certificates, and Dairy Queen gift cards from the Cherokee SWCD.
From Alta-Aurelia the winners were Matthew Castaneda – First Place, Lilah Gustafson – Second Place, and Addilyn Langschwager – Third Place. Cherokee’s winners were Claire Cedar – 1st place, Hayden Ankrum – 2nd place, and Lincoln Mortenson – 3rd place. From MMCRU the winners were Gavin Alesch – 1st place, Christiana Murray – 2nd place, and Jagger Becker – 3rd place. River Valley’s winners were Justin Carstens – 1st place, Bristol Baldwin – 2nd place, and Emerson Law – 3rd place.
Claire Cedar was chosen as the overall winner for Cherokee County and her poster will be sent to the Conservation Districts of Iowa Regional Director for the regional competition.
All the participating students’ posters can be viewed at the Sanford Museum during the month of June.