Fairchild Challenge, Green Careers Day

Written by: Amee Andreason

Students at the erosion table water room exercise at Fairchild Challenge's Green Careers DayThe Upper Colorado Regional Office and Provo Area Office participated in Fairchild Challenge’s Green Careers Day at Thanksgiving Point, Utah. Fairchild Challenge offers 11 fun environmentally-themed challenges aimed to improve the environment and help schools win money by getting students together to compete with each other, or by doing an individual project. The challenge is free to enter for participants. The environmental education program is designed to give high school students an opportunity to express their opinions about environmental issues in their region. By appealing to their intuitive sense of creativity and curiosity, the challenge invites students to investigate the most difficult environmental issues, imagine effective responses to the issues, and take action to address them.

Green Careers Day brings the students to interact with and learn from a variety of professionals working in green-related careers. Students get their hands dirty by participating in activities designed to help them gain awareness of different environmentally-based jobs.

Reclamation used the Fairchild Challenge Green Careers Day to teach students Reclamation’s mission and conduct a watercourse scenario. Katrina Grantz, Upper Colorado Region Hydraulic Engineer, explained the different types of dams and water management-related projects. She also taught about the exciting work that Reclamation conducts and the potential careers Reclamation offers in the fields of engineering, land and recreation, safety and security, environmental protection, geology, and much more.

The students went to the erosion table water room where David Snyder, Provo Area Fish and Wildlife Biologist, provided a scenario to the students where they had to build water delivery systems with irrigation pipelines, ditches, farm ponds, dams, etc., to get water to a farm without enough water on one side of a mountain and manage the water flow to a farm with too much water on the other side of the mountain---all while protecting endangered fish. The fun, hands-on exercise taught students in-depth scenarios of the type of work Reclamation conducts.

Students returned positive feedback and were engaged by answering lessons learned questions at the end of each presentation.

Published on October 02, 2015