AWF Youth Wildlife Art Contest

CLICK HERE for AWF’s NEW Alabama Wildlife Art Contest Activity

The Alabama Wildlife Federation (AWF) strives to educate Alabama’s youth about our state’s rich biodiversity through our conservation education programs.  For the past thirty years, the AWF has utilized the AWF William R. Ireland, Sr. Youth Wildlife Art Contest as one of our conservation education programs to encourage children to create artwork depicting Alabama’s native wildlife. Throughout the life of this wonderful program, thousands of children have learned about our native wildlife as they researched the physical characteristics of native species in order to accurately illustrate these animals in their artwork.  In an effort to reach even more teachers and students across Alabama, we have converted this art contest format into a new, free, on-line activity that all teachers can easily download and use at any time during the year.  Our goal is that more of Alabama’s talented students will have the opportunity to be recognized locally for their artistic talents, while learning more about Alabama’s wildlife and the habitat these animals rely on for survival.
 
AWF’s new, highly-educational “Alabama Wildlife Art Contest” provides an opportunity for teachers to integrate art throughout the curriculum including science, social studies, geography, reading, writing and technology.  The guidelines for this new wildlife art contest require students to choose one specific wildlife species indigenous to Alabama, and then research the species and its habitat in Alabama.  This encourages students to read and utilize regional field identification guides such as the National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Southeastern States, educational books like Scot Duncan’s Southern Wonder: Alabama’s Surprising Biodiversity, and websites such as Discovering Alabama’s Ask the Expert and the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ Watchable Wildlife.  Thus, the students will learn not only about Alabama’s rich biodiversity but also the ecosystems that support this biodiversity. 
 
Alabama is one of the most biologically diverse places on Earth.  The state ranks fifth in the nation in plant and animal diversity, and first in the nation in freshwater species diversity.  This wealth of natural biodiversity stems from the state’s diverse physiographic regions, abundance of water resources, and moderate climate.  Alabama is home to a wide variety of wildlife including 70 different species of amphibians, 85 species of native reptiles, 433 species of birds, 62 native mammal species, more than 450 species of fish, and thousands of insect species.  Alabama also has a high number of “at risk” and imperiled species, and only Hawaii has lost more species to extinction.  The primary cause for the decline, extirpation and extinction of these animals is the loss of habitat that provides the food, water, shelter and breeding areas for Alabama’s wildlife to flourish. 
 
While participating in the new “Alabama Wildlife Art Contest,” students will go outside to explore their school grounds (or their outdoor classroom site if they have one) to determine if the area currently provides the habitat requirements for the wildlife species they have chosen or if the habitat could be created on the school grounds.  After evaluating the school’s grounds (or outdoor classroom area), the students and teachers are encouraged to develop a schoolyard wildlife habitat or enhance their outdoor classroom site so that it can be used as an educational tool through the Alabama Outdoor Classroom Program.  This will enable students to get outdoors and personally observe local wildlife in its natural habitat, recording their behavior and characteristics just as naturalists, ecologists and artists do, so they can more easily depict the wildlife in its natural habitat in their artwork. 


CLICK HERE for AWF’s NEW Alabama Wildlife Art Contest Activity .