| Sonnen
wins essay contest
The 6th grade class at Prairie Middle School was involved in an essay writing contest put out by the Idaho Forest Products Commission. The essay was state wide and included grades 6-8. The students were asked to imagine they were in charge of taking care of Idaho’s forests. They were to give ideas on how they could manage the forest making sure they listed ideas to improve the beauty and habitat of Idaho forests. 
Whitney Sonnen was a statewide winner and will receive a $100 savings bond and her class will receive to spend $200 as Whitney and her class sees fit. Following is Whitney’s winning essay: By Whitney Sonnen The first thing I would do is clean some of the brush. That way if we cleaned up the brush and nasty weeds the grass would grow. If a fire starts, the trees will die with the brush there, because the brush is like a ladder that leads the fire up to the top of the trees. Also, if the brush was cleaned up the trees can grow bigger. The reason for this is with the brush there the trees have to fight for water. With trees growing bigger that means we would have to log more. As we log I would leave some bark lay on the ground to decompose into the ground. Also with logging more means the forest will ne managed and cleaner. After logging I would burn the tree that could not be used for lumber. I’d leave the stump to decompose. Finally , I would replace trees. I would replant trees to replace the trees that were logged, so in the future those trees will be as big as the ones that were logged. But there really can’t be a finally, because we will have to keep cleaning out brush, logging and replanting trees. So, for right now I will keep walking through the forest and thinking about what it would be like if I managed Idaho’s Forest. |
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