Pickaway Soil & Water Conservation District offers conservation education programs.  Programs offered consist of Classroom Presentations, Experience Earth Day Camp, Soil & Water Stewardship Field Days, Envirothon Contests and Teacher Workshops.  We also offer Poster Contests, 4-H Awards, and a lending library.

Classroom Presentations

Pickaway SWCD provides presentations to school classes and other groups. There is no charge. All programs have been correlated to the Ohio Science Content Grade Level Indicators

Experience Earth Day Camp

"Experience Earth" is a Day Camp for children who have completed 3rd or 4th grade.  It takes place in July! A small fee is charged.

Campers must live in Pickaway County or attend school in a Pickaway County School District and must have completed 3rd or 4th grade to attend Experience Earth Day Camp.

VOLUNTEER INFORMATION

Volunteers are needed for various tasks such as group leaders, assisting presenters, serving lunches, set-up, tear-down, and more. Relatives and friends of campers are invited to participate as a volunteer. Volunteers must be 14 years old. Volunteers receive free lunch, camp t-shirt, and transportation (if available).

Soil & Water Stewardship Field Days

"Field Days" are outdoor programs held at elementary schools or local parks.  The students rotate to a number of different stations with presenters from agencies like Soil & Water; Ohio Department of Natural Resources-Divisions of Forestry, Natural Areas and Preserves, Wildlife, Geology, Recycling; Metro Parks and others. The theme follows the current Soil & Water Stewardship Theme.

2010 Theme: Conservation Habits = Healthy Habitats

Soil & Water Stewardship Poster Contest

Pickaway SWCD sponsors a Poster Contest for 4th-6th Graders & 7th-9th Graders attending school in Pickaway County. Prizes are awarded to the 1st & 2nd place posters in each category. Additional Honorable Mention ribbons are presented. One Poster is selected to be displayed on a Billboard during the month of May. To introduce students to the theme, Pickaway SWCD offers educational resource materials.

For more information click on the Links below.

2010 1st Place Recipients:

7th-9th Graders - Chloe Sollars, McDowell 8th Grade FIRST PLACE IN STATE

4th-6th Graders - Nicki Franks, Washington 6th Grade

2010 2nd Place Recipients:

7th-9th Graders - Kaitlin Willard, McDowell 8th Grade

4th-6th Graders - Jacob Ruby, Walnut 5th Grade

Entry Form - set of 3

Workshops

"Workshops" can be provided for teachers who are interested in Project Food, Land & People, Project WET, Project WILD, and Project Learning Tree.

Project FLP is a collection of lesson plans and activities that focus on America's capacity to feed its citizens and others around the world.

Project WET is a collection of classroom-ready teaching aids that promote awareness, appreciation, knowledge, and stewardship of water resources.

Project WILD is an interdisciplinary conservation and environmental education program emphasizing wildlife.

Project Learning Tree:, Through hands-on, interdisciplinary activities, PLT provides students, in grades PreK-12, with opportunities to investigate environmental issues and encourages them to make informed, responsible decisions.

4-H Natural Resources Awards

Pickaway SWCD is a sponsor of the Pickaway County 4-H Program.

Pickaway SWCD presents 2 Overall Natural Resources 4-H Project awards during the Pickaway County Fair. 1st place receives a certificate and a Gold Medal. 2nd place receives a certificate and a Silver Medal. To find out which 4-H projects qualify, contact the Pickaway County Extension Office at 740-474-7534.

Winners of these awards give a short speech at the Pickaway SWCD Annual Meeting.

Envirothon

Pickaway SWCD sponsors the Pickaway County Envirothon Teams. The Envirothon is a competitive, outdoor academic team event for high school students. Teams consist of 5 students, all from the same high school. The Envirothon tests students' knowledge of soils and land use, forestry, wildlife, aquatic ecology, and current environmental issues. Envirothon teams from Pickaway County participate in the Area 5 competition which consists of approximately 70 teams. Teams placing in the top four at the Area contests advance to the Ohio Envirothon. Twenty teams compete at the State contest for a chance to advance to the Canon Envirothon.

Visit the Canon Envirothon website at www.envirothon.org.

2010 Results

58 teams from 17 counties participated in the Area 5 Envirothon on Tuesday, April 27 at Paint Creek Lake.

Logan Elm Blue placed 28th.

Logan Elm Gold placed 33rd.

Lending Library

Lending Library items can be borrowed for 2 weeks at a time. We have videos, slide sets, activity guides, reference books, rock sets, Groundwater Model, Enviroscape^®, Streamulator^®, Erosion Control Model, Forestry Trunk, Project Learning Tree Fire Trunk, and Stream Quality Monitoring Trunk.

LINKS

SOIL

Background Information on Soils:

http://forces.si.edu/soils/

http://www.soils.org

http://soils.usda.gov/education/

http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/worms/index.html

http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/dlc-me/zoo/zdmain.html

http://www.wtamu.edu/~crobinson/DrDirt.htm

WATERSHED

http://www.adopt-a-watershed.org

GEOLOGY

Photos of Concretions in Deer Creek, south of Williamsport, Ohio. Click on a picture to enlarge then use the back button to return. Photos provided by C. Randall Metzger, Pickaway SWCD Supervisor.

Stages Pond (kettle lake)