22nd Annual Georgia Conservation Art Poster Contest
OutdoorHub 02.22.12
Teachers and students across Georgia are invited to celebrate Georgia’s wildlife and students’
artistic interests by participating in the Give Wildlife a Chance Poster Contest. Whether exploring their schoolyard and backyard environments or taking a field trip to a nearby park, nature center or botanical garden, students are encouraged to share their plant and animal discoveries through art in the 22nd annual conservation poster contest.
This year’s competition theme, “The Art of Conservation – Discovering Georgia’s Natural Heritage Through Art,” spurs students to learn about the state’s magnificent native plant and nongame animals through drawing, following in the footsteps of famous naturalists and artists like William Bartram, John James Audubon and Roger Tory Peterson. Nongame species (those not legally hunted or fished
for) vary from rare animals and plants such as the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker and the hooded pitcherplant to common species such as the northern cardinal and flowering dogwood.
Entries in the state-level contest must be postmarked by April 6. The contest is sponsored by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’
Nongame Conservation Section, the State Botanical Garden of Georgia and The Environmental Resources Network, or T.E.R.N., friends group of the Nongame Conservation Section.
The contest is open to kindergarten through 5th-grade students in public schools, private schools and home-school groups. Participants enter at the local school-level with drawings that depict their observations of Georgia’s native nongame animals and plants. Top school-level entries proceed to the state contest at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia in Athens. First-, second- and third-place winners are chosen there for four divisions: kindergarten, first and second grade, third and fourth grade, and fifth grade.
The top 12 winners will be featured in the 2012-2013 Give Wildlife a Chance Poster Contest school-year calendar. All state-level contest winners also will be on display on weekends April 20-May 7 at Georgia DNR’s Go Fish Education Center in Perry. The Go Fish Education Center offers an educational journey through Georgia’s watersheds to learn about the state’s diverse aquatic wildlife, their natural habitats and the impacts of water pollution. Visit www.gofisheducationcenter.com for hours, fees and other details.
The goal of the Give Wildlife a Chance Poster Contest theme is to generate a greater knowledge and appreciation of Georgia’s diverse and increasingly threatened nongame wildlife and their habitats. Only a deep concern and commitment to these wild places will ensure their existence for future generations.
Visit www.georgiawildlife.com/PosterContest or www.uga.edu/botgarden for contest rules, entry forms and further information about the 22nd annual Give Wildlife a Chance Poster Contest. DNR’s Nongame Conservation Section, the State Botanical Garden of Georgia and T.E.R.N.
have sponsored more than two decades of nongame wildlife exploration, education and art with the annual contest.
