The Poster Contest is open to k-12 students in Elkhart County.

Size

• Poster must be on 11″x17″ paper.
• Poster must be in landscape/horizontal orientation.

Poster Design

• Poster must include the theme title (listed at the top of this page).
• Poster design must reflect the theme (listed at the top of this page).
• Any media maybe used (crayons, colored pencils, paint, collage, charcoal, stickers, paper, etc.).
• Poster must be student’s original artwork (no tracing of existing pictures/posters).
• Need more information on soils? Check out this website: https://www.soils.org/about-soils/. The video is a great introduction to soils.

What makes a good poster?

• Attracts attention
• Is simple and concise
• Uses colors and white spaces effectively
• Text is large enough to be easily read
• Text and illustrations are well balanced (not all one or the other)
• Uses theme
• Research the theme to brainstorm poster ideas
• Doesn’t use staples, tacks, or tape.
• Doesn’t use fluorescent-colored paper

Submission

• Please include on the back of the poster student first and last name, school, grade, and teacher.
• Posters may be mailed, scanned and emailed, or picked up for large groups.
• If mailing, please send to Elkhart County SWCD, ATTN Poster Contest, 59358 County Road 7, Elkhart, IN 46517.
• If emailing, please send in one pdf document (you may have to compress if too large) and email to elkcoswcd@elkhartcounty.com with the subject line “Poster Contest”.
• If you have a lot of posters from several grade levels or classes, an SWCD staff member may be able to pick up the posters from your school. Please coordinate with other teachers in your building, so that the SWCD is only making one stop.
• Once posters are submitted they will become the property of the Elkhart County SWCD. We will do our best to return posters to students after judging has occurred.
• Poster must be submitted by February 1.

Judging

• Posters will be judged in four age categories: K-2nd, 3rd-5th, 6th-8th, 9th-12th.
• Posters will be judged by an education committee.
• Top 3 winners will be selected from each age category.
• Winners will have their posters featured at the Elkhart County SWCD annual meeting in the spring (see calendar for date).
• Prizes will be awarded to the top posters.
• The #1 poster contest winner will have their poster featured in the Elkhart County SWCD annual report.

Questions?

If you have any questions please contact Jenna at 574-523-2033 or email jwait@elkhartcounty.com