The Envirothon is a yearly event with competitions at both state and national levels. There are opportunity's to travel and compete to win prizes and cash awards. The competition focuses on the student's knowledge within the five areas of soil, wildlife, water, forestry and other natural resources including hands on identification. The Kodiak Soil & Water Conservation District will facilitate the education of the students by setting up different learning opportunities utilizing our local resources. We research our local community resources to find the best educational tools to teach the students the information within these areas. To date they have had speakers such as a Fisheries Biologist that came and spoke on Riparian Zones, a Supervisor from the Water and Wastewater treatment plant that spoke on Water Legislation and Water Quality, a Finfish Research Biologist that came and spoke on Lake Ecology, an Assistant Manager to the Lands and Natural resources department of a local native corporation that spoke on Soils and Land use.

Currently the teams are meeting three times a week; after school, during lunch and a weekly field study trip. At the last meeting the group was divided into two teams, each with a project explanation and 30 minutes to come up with a presentation. The subjects were difficult, Water Legislation and Lake Ecology; the kids really had to pull their resources to come up with a presentation that fulfilled the needed requirements. It was really impressive to see the students take the knowledge that they had gained over the last couple of weeks and pull it into a presentation that showed all. Jane Eisemann facilitated the challenge and when the students were done she asked questions that sparked the children to better understand the subject and its contents, when they walked away both teams had a full understanding of both subjects.

Our group has some concerns about participating in a competition with seasoned participants. We are working hard, but with only 12 weeks of preparation the concern is great. We wish our teams the very best and know that the training and hard work they have invested will do them well. Good Luck to our Kodiak Envirothon Teams!

The Kodiak Soil and Water Conservation Districts Assistant District Manager, Donna Jones has partnered with Kodiak High School Fisheries Marine Science Teacher, Jane Eisemann to form the first Kodiak Envirothon team. The team has been created from the students who participate within our newly formed local Kodiak FFA Chapter. The Envirothon is sponsored by Canon and is partly funded through a grant submitted by Al Poindexter, our State Program Coordinator of the Alaska Association of Conservation Districts (AACD) and also by our local Kodiak Soil and Water Conservation District.

It should be noted that many of the participants of our Envirothon Team also are involved in our FFA Chapter.