DNR Sponsors 30th Annual K-5 Art Competition

The Georgia Department of Natural Resources is inviting teachers from K-5 to encourage their students to participate in the 30th annual Wildlife Poster Contest.

For the past 30 years, the DNR has held the art competition as a way to to educate as well as cultivate a greater appreciation of Georgia’s diverse wildlife and their habitats.

The theme for the 2019-2020 academic year highlights a very special habitat, according to Linda May, Outreach Coordinator for the DNR’s Urban Wildlife Program.

“It’s a statewide arts competition, based on an environmental theme that changes every year,” she said. “And because this is the 30th year for the competition, we wanted to pick a really special habitat to focus on. So, we chose Georgia bogs because they are really unique wetlands and they have some really cool species in them and they’re disappearing.”

Once thought of as muddy wastelands, bogs are now considered extraordinary ecosystems full of life.
The DNR hopes teachers will use the art contest as a way to teach their students about the importance of wetlands and bogs to the ecosystem in Georgia, as well as a way to learn about the different kinds of critters that call the wetlands home.

May says students can use any kind of art media they choose except sculpture for their entry.

“They can use their creative minds to come up with whatever scene they want,” May explained. “We just ask that it has at least one non-game species, an animal or plant that is not hunted or fished. Other than that, they can use their creativity.”

After creating artwork based on this year’s theme, participants will enter their drawings and paintings at the local school level.

Top school-level entries then proceed to the state contest at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia in Athens.

The top 12 state-level winners’ artwork will be showcased on DNR Wildlife Resources Division social media sites and displayed at the State Botanical Garden in Athens next May.

As a special perk for supporting this contest, each state-level winner’s teacher and one parent will be eligible to receive a free DNR wildlife license plate.

To learn more about the art competition and contest rules you can go online to : DNR Poster Contest.