T-minus 15 school days left of the 2021- 2022 school year.

When the school year begins to wind down to the last few weeks, finals begin to slowly happen in many of the classes at Lakeland High School. 

Students in Mrs. Casas’s Forestry and Wildlife class have started their finals and began the process of finishing up the year. Roughly a month ago the young scientists started their Youth Water Summit projects. 

The Youth Water Summit is a program run by many scientists in Idaho. On Boise State’s website, they say that the mission of this project is to give students the opportunity for independent research and discovery. Student scientists are responsible for developing a research topic and conducting an experiment to acquire comprehensive knowledge about the scientific method and practice.

Today, May 19 the students in Mrs. Casas’s class will be presenting their research projects to their peers and to some faculty members. They will be expected to come prepared with a board with their subject, a five-minute presentation, and an ability to answer questions about their research. 

On May 25 students that volunteer will go on a field trip to gather with many other schools to present their projects in front of important judges from the college and in front of students from other schools around the area.

Addison Raebel, a junior at Lakeland High School has been in Forestry and Wildlife the whole year and is now participating in the final with Jack Boettcher, Zachary Roses, and Emma Stutzke. They are doing their presentation about Wolverines. 

 “No, I am not excited about presenting because presenting in front of people is embarrassing… I think that if you feel strongly about your Water Summit presentation then you should take it to the next level at the Summit in a few weeks,” Addison said in an interview. 

Frank Vieira is a counselor at Lakeland High School, he judged the presentations. “I enjoyed listening to the many projects that our students have worked on… I think it is an enriching way to learn about plus it helps students with presentation and communication skills”. 

I am in Mrs. Casas’s second-period Forestry and Wildlife class and am more excited to do my presentation in front of my peers and faculty than at the actual summit.

I did my Youth Water Summit project with me, myself, and I and our project is about the building of man-made lakes and how they are not great for the environment, mainly focussing on Radiant Lake here in Rathdrum. 

I think that doing projects like this is an effective way to test students’ dedication and knowledge within a subject without giving them a million question test.