7/27/99

Contacts:
David Countryman, Forestry, (515) 294-7703
Megan Kuhn, Agriculture Information, (515) 294-2957

ISU STUDENTS TAKE SECOND IN REGIONAL FORESTRY CONTEST

AMES -- A team of Iowa State University forestry students tied for second place in the 1998-99 Upper Midwest Capstone Report Contest.

Teams from four universities were judged on projects conducted during their senior-year capstone courses. Each university offers these courses, which require forestry students to use knowledge from courses throughout the curriculum to solve a land or resource management problem. Judges evaluated the teams' project reports on the quality of writing, ease of comprehension, technical rigor and sense of land stewardship.

Each team worked on a different "real world" situation that included a unique set of landowner objectives and property. The ISU team studied an Army Corps of Engineers property making up a downstream corridor of the Des Moines River below Saylorville Lake. They worked on alternatives for lessening the effects of expanding the Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway in Des Moines.

Michigan Technological University took first place and the University of Wisconsin tied ISU for second. Michigan State University also participated.

Members of the ISU team are Joseph Tentinger, Akron; Michael Anderson, Lowden; Jennifer Hare, Des Moines; Eric Holzmueller, Des Moines; Jason Johnson, Fort Madison; and Brett Mason, Davenport. David Countryman, professor of forestry, teaches the ISU course.

Sponsors of the contest included Lake Superior Land, Calumet, Mich.; Menominee Tribal Enterprises, Neopit, Wis.; Tenneco Packaging Company, Tomahawk, Wis.; and the Department of Forest Ecology and Management, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

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