Storm Lake St. Mary’s students win county conservation poster honors

Two St. Mary’s Catholic School students put Buena Vista County’s conservation message in the spotlight by winning top honors in this year’s countywide Soil and Water Conservation Poster Contest, a program that reached more than 1,000 students.

Alisson Dayana Guardado Viscarra finished first among all sixth-grade entries countywide, while Davaney Gibbins placed first at the first-grade level. Colleen Schwanz presented the awards at St. Mary’s on March 30, and both students will receive the contest’s top prize, an aerial tour that will give them a bird’s-eye view of Buena Vista County’s natural habitats.

The contest theme, Soil: Where It All Begins, matched the 2026 stewardship theme of the National Association of Conservation Districts and reflected the way the Buena Vista County Soil and Water Conservation District teaches students about healthy soil before they turn those lessons into artwork. District materials frame soil as the starting point for the food chain and a key part of conservation practices, a message that carries extra weight in a county where farming, runoff and water quality are everyday concerns.

The poster program also shows how broad that education effort has become. Buena Vista County’s contest reached more than 1,000 students this year, and district records show the competition has drawn even larger participation in the past, including 1,379 posters in 2023. The scale matters because the contest is not simply an art exercise. It is part of a countywide conservation curriculum that introduces students to soil, water and habitat stewardship early, then lets their work advance through district, state and national levels.

That effort has local backing as well. In December 2024, the Buena Vista County Soil and Water Conservation District told county supervisors that county funds support conservation education programs in Buena Vista County, and district staff said they use Buena Vista County Park for one of those programs. The county conservation system is already substantial: the Buena Vista County Conservation Board manages 17 areas totaling more than 1,200 acres of parks, wildlife refuges, historic sites and natural areas.

St. Mary’s has also been part of that broader focus on conservation learning. In March 2026, students there were recognized in the district’s essay contest, which asked them to explain soil’s role in food production, water filtration and the carbon cycle. Together, the essay and poster contests show a steady effort to connect classroom lessons to the land beneath Buena Vista County’s fields, creeks and habitats.