Teacher Tips

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources, The State Botanical Garden of Georgia and The Environmental Resources Network, Inc. (T.E.R.N.) are delighted to have you participate in the 21st annual Give Wildlife a Chance Poster Contest! The theme for this year’s competition is Celebrating Georgia’s Wildlife from the Mountains to the Sea, a topic that showcases our state’s magnificent native plant and animal diversity that inhabit each physiographic region from the Appalachian Mountains in the Blue Ridge ecoregion to the sandy beaches of the Barrier Islands ecoregion.

Whether walking through a cove forest in the mountains, floating down the Altamaha River by canoe, or wandering the Spanish-moss draped hammock forests on Sapelo Island, your students can explore all the wildlife diversity Georgia’s natural habitats have to offer. As your student’s guide, your assignment is to excite and motivate them to bring the 2011 theme Celebrating Georgia’s Wildlife from the Mountains to the Sea to life! Encourage your students to explore the world around them and express their findings with unique mediums and brilliant colors.

Their artwork may reflect a tiger swallowtail feeding on a milkweed plant near a piedmont prairie, a red-cockaded woodpecker foraging for insects in a longleaf pine forest, or a loggerhead sea turtle nesting on the beaches of Cumberland Island.

The goal of this year’s Give Wildlife a Chance Poster Contest theme is to generate a greater
knowledge and appreciation of Georgia’s diverse and increasingly threatened wildlife and
their habitats. It is only a deep concern and commitment to these wild places that will ensure
their existence for future generations to enjoy.

Contest details:

Start with a local contest at your school

While following the Poster Contest Rules and Guidelines, your students will depict artistic
drawings of their findings and will compete at the local level in a school-wide poster contest.

First, second and third place winners should be chosen from your school’s entries for the local level contest at your school.

All participating students can receive place award ribbons and a Give Wildlife a Chance certificate (refer to Contest Awards section). Participating schools will then choose one first place winner from each division and mail the winning entries to The State Botanical Garden of Georgia to compete in the state level contest. These entries will be comprised of the four division categories described in the Poster Contest Rules and Guidelines section. First, second and third place winners will be chosen as state level winners from each Division level.

These top 12 winners will be showcased in the 2011-2012 Give Wildlife a Chance Poster Contest winning calendar.

Classroom activities and resources

New resource! Georgia’s Project WILD provides an excellent teacher resource guide that includes details of the six physiographic regions for the state (Cumberland Plateau, Ridge and Valley, Blue Ridge, Piedmont, Coastal Plain and Barrier Islands). Visit www.georgiawildlife.com and click “Education” to learn more about the ecoregion where your students live and what habitats they share with Georgia’s diverse wildlife!

Also:

• Check with your school or public library, DNR wildlife biologist, state park ranger, county extension agent, garden club, nature center or local nursery to see what information they offer on native wildlife and plants.
• Host a guest speaker, go on a field trip to a natural area or display photos of native species in your classroom.
• Use identification field guides to learn range and distribution of Georgia’s native plants and animals.
• Visit a butterfly garden and have your students draw what they see.
• Help your students to distinguish the differences between native plants and introduced/exotic species such as kudzu, and learn how exotic species can displace the native species.
• Show your students how to do an internet search for Georgia’s native nongame wildlife. Visit sites such as www.georgiawildlife.com, http://museum.nhm.uga.edu, www.srel.edu, www.enature.com, www.gwf.org, www.gos.org, www.uga.edu/botgarden and http://southeast.fws.gov.