Sacramento City Unified School District
Congratulations to Francisco Franco Torres, David Candia, and Michael Rafanan of Sacramento New Technology High School for winning the Forestry Challenge Championship! This group participated in the statewide forestry challenge in April at Camp Sylvester Resort. The students had the highest score and ranked number one out of 22 teams.
The Forestry Challenge is an academic event that started in 2003 for high school students in technical forestry and current forestry topics. Participants spend four days in the forest learning about the ecology and management of the forested landscapes that provide communities with water, recreational opportunities, wood products, and wildlife habitat. Youth benefit by better understanding the relationship of the forested environment to their community, by exposure to natural resource management as a potential career option, and by undertaking a rigorous critical thinking exercise which is timely and addresses current forestry topics such as wildfire, insects, and forest health.
Torres, Candia and Rafanan had the opportunity to spend a day in the forest collecting data and interacting with natural resource professionals, and made recommendations that were practical, economically sound, and in compliance with the California Forest Practice Rules.
“Forestry Challenge provides a learning opportunity about California’s most valuable resource: our forests. Learners are engaged in the complex responsibility of understanding and making decisions about the environmental and economic factors involved in keeping our forests healthy,” said New Tech High School teacher Senna Vasquez.
“The skills utilized in Forestry Challenge are not only applicable in Forestry Challenge. Data analysis skills, time management skills, and presentation skills are all applicable in real-world situations,” said David Candia, a junior at New Tech.
For more information about the winners and the challenge visit: http://forestrychallenge.org/