The Chatham Soil & Water Conservation District offers educator resources and student programs to advance environmental literacy among its residents.

We offer:

• Numerous educator resources are available for loan. Available resources include Project Food, Land, and People, Project Water Education Today (WET), Project WILD, Soil! Get the Inside Scoop, and our Pelts, Skulls, and Prints Box.
• Hands-on activities for children and adults including our popular EnviroScape Watershed Model which demonstrates non-point and point source pollution in an engaging and interactive way for all ages.
• Academic contests and programs, such as Envirothon and Conservation Contests
• Creek Geeks Field Day (Typically held in March/April)
• Assistance in creating Outdoor Environmental Learning Centers

Brandy Oldham, Education Coordinator
brandy.oldham@chathamcountync.gov | (919) 545-8440

Conservation Contests

The Chatham County Soil & Water Conservation District sponsors a conservation poster, essay, and public speaking contest each year. These contests have been in existence for over 50 years.

The Contests have been an important tool for the District to encourage young people to think about conservation. It's also a way for us to become involved with our local schools and our youth, and to introduce them to their local Conservation District.

Past winners of Poster & Essay contest.

For complete contest details, visit our Conservation Contests page.

Residents can find more details regarding contests, including scoring rubric, registration forms, hints and tips, as well as NC DPI Goals & Objectives, by visiting the North Carolina Division of Soil & Water Conservation.

All entries in the same grade category are combined with no distinction between schools. A first, second and third place finalist is selected in each of the grade categories. Some schools choose to have a competition at school level first, sending their winners to the District. Winners from each grade category win a certificate and monetary prize! First place posters are then sent to the Area 3 competition, which represents these eleven counties: Chatham, Rockingham, Lee, Moore, Caswell, Randolph, Alamance, Montgomery, Guilford, Person and Orange.

The first place winners from the Area then compete at the State level. State winners are entered in a nation-wide contest and are judged at the National Association of Conservation Districts' Annual Convention.

Envirothon

For information on the local Envirothon competition, please visit our Envirothon webpage.

The North American Envirothon is a nation-wide annual competition in which winning state/provincial teams compete for recognition and scholarships by demonstrating their knowledge of environmental science and natural resource management. The teams, each consisting of five high school-aged students from participating US States and Canadian Provinces, exercise their training and problem-solving skills in a competition centered five universal testing categories: soils/land use, aquatic ecology, forestry, wildlife, and a current environmental issue.

Training for the North American Envirothon begins well in advance of the actual event. Each team arrives at the North American Envirothon as a result of extensive training and superior performance at local and/or regional and state/provincial Envirothon competitions.

The Envirothon program is an effective educational tool, capable of supplementing environmental education both inside and outside the classroom. Led by a volunteer advisor, teams usually meet from late autumn until spring. Teams work collaboratively to develop their knowledge of ecology and natural resource management and to practice their environmental problem-solving skills in preparation for Envirothon competitions.

Team training includes field trips to natural resource sites, museums, or other areas of interest; listening to presentations given by natural resource professionals; and careful study of natural resource materials. Through these learning activities, teams increase their knowledge of and ability to understand complex environmental and natural resource issues.

For more information, visit our Envirothon webpage. Residents can visit the North American Envirothon website to find out about the national competition.

Envirothon School for Advisors & Teachers

Interested in starting an Envirothon team but unsure how it works? The 2025 Envirothon School for Advisors & Teachers can help! This popular workshop will take place June 10th through 12th, 2025 at Blue Jay Point Lodge Falls Lake (3200Pleasant Union Church Rd., Raleigh, NC 27614). Registration is $75.00 and included meals & overnight accommodations (if requested) for all five workshops. Registration is $25.00 per day for 1 to 3 days of workshops.

Registration opens April 1 and ends May 31, 2025. Register online. Please contact Marybeth Watkins with Brunswick County Soil & Water for any questions, marybeth.watkins@brunswickcountync.gov.

 Feel free to post our flyer in an area of your school where other interested teachers may see it. Thank you for helping spread the word!

Resource Conservation Workshop

Resource Conservation Workshop Informational Flyer

The Resource Conservation Workshop is a weeklong workshop and involves study and hands on participation in a wide range of conservation topics. Students are housed at North Carolina State University campus dormitories under the guidance of live-in counselors. In order to achieve success, students should come prepared to meet the primary objective of the workshop -- learning about natural resources and their management in today’s global environment. Awards and scholarships can be won and are presented to students under several awards programs. It is open to all rising sophomore, junior and senior high school students interested in natural resource management. Students may attend the RCW only once.

Every year, the Resource Conservation Workshop is held at the North Carolina State University campus in June. The 2026 Resource Conservation Workshop will take place June 14-June 19, 2026. Interested rising sophomore, junior, and senior high school students in Chatham County may apply through our application. Applications may be mailed or dropped off in person to our office at 1192 US 64 W Business, Suite 200, Pittsboro, NC 27312 or emailed to Brandy Oldham at brandy.oldham@chathamcountync.gov

Applications are due by March 31, 2026.

For an insider's look at the Resource Conservation Workshop, please see a promotional video prepared by the Durham Soil and Water Conservation District.

For more information, please email our Education Coordinator. 

Creek Geeks Field Day

Creek Geeks 2026 Flyer 

Creek Geeks Field Day is a free, family friendly annual event that provides an opportunity for the community to explore their local watershed.

Our 2026 Creek Geeks Field Day will be held on March 14, 2026 on the Loves Creek Greenway at Bray Park (800 Alston Bridge Rd., Siler City, NC 27344) from 12pm to 3pm. This event is a part of Chatham County Creek Week, March 14-21, 2026. Creek Week provides the citizens of Chatham County the opportunity to participate in a variety of activities and programs that relate to the waters of our County. Registration is encouraged but not required. You may register online.

Previous Creek Geeks Field Days have been held at Boling Lane Park in Siler City, NC.

Examples of activities that have taken place at Creek Geeks:

• A tour of Boling Lane Park where the Town of Siler City installed Best Management Practices (BMPs) such as wetlands and riparian buffers.
• Opportunities to learn about native plantings used in the area.
• Attendees were invited to learn some of the techniques used in stream health assessment and water quality testing.
• Attendees were able to search for macro invertebrate critters living in the creek.
• An EnviroScape watershed demonstration where participants learned how pollution affects watersheds.
• Learn about invasive plant species.
• Learn about snakes, turtles, and amphibians.
• Solid Waste and Recycling joined us in 2025 to talk about how plastics interact with our waterways.
• Watershed Protection joined us in 2025 to teach the public about some local creek life and learn about how everyone affects the water quality in our local waterways

Outdoor Environmental Learning Centers

In partnership with the Foundation for Soil & Water Conservation, the Chatham Soil & Water Conservation District has helped create several outdoor environmental learning centers for county schools. Schools that have received funding for outdoor environmental learning centers include Siler City Elementary, Pittsboro Elementary, and Silk Hope School. These learning centers have created an environment where students and teachers have the opportunity to explore the natural world in an outdoor setting. 

Pittsboro Elementary worked with Town of Pittsboro Parks & Recreation and the Cooperative Extension Chatham County Center to clean up the trail between the school and Town Lake Park. The Chatham Soil & Water Conservation District obtained grants to add an Outdoor Environmental Learning Center and a pier at Town Lake Park in Pittsboro for students to have access to the lake to take water samples.

Trail clean-up was a group effort and included invasive plant removal.	An eager student tests out the cypress benches at the outdoor classroom. Grant provided by Foundation for Soil & Water Conservation Districts.
Pittsboro Town Lake Pier, Grant provided by Foundation for Soil & Water Conservation Districts.	The Chatham Soil & Water Conservation District helped obtain state grant funds to build an outdoor learning center at Siler City Elementary.