Results from London for Olympic Wreath Competition!

Toss out the rest of your sleeping pills because the official results for the 2012 BGCI / Fairchild Challenge Plant Champions Olympic Wreath Competition are finally in. I am very excited to announce that Bridget Welsh and Emily O'Connor's Olympic wreath and essay were included in the Top 10 finalists of the global judging that took place in London! Congratulations to both of the students, whom I know have had a great time, not only with the project, but with following the competition. Congratulations as well to the teachers and faculty at Key Largo School who enthusiastically chose to incorporate this exciting competition as part of their curricula and made it possible for the students to participate.

Here is a picture of Bridget and Emily's entry, front and center, featured on the Top 10 page:

What a great international showing for Key Largo, our schools, and our students in our first year of participation in a global competition!

The results from the rest of the Competition can be found here. After you've selected a results page, click on each of the photos to see the corresponding plant lists and essays; our entries were amongst some great company. While the Keys wasn't the 1st Place winner in this year's global competition, we'll be preparing like botanical Olympians to win the next one!


Rick Hederstrom
Associate Director

Olympic Wreath Competition Awards Ceremony

On March 9th, I traveled to Key Largo School for a morning much anticipated by 7th grade students in the classes of Ms. Burson, Ms. Prew, and Ms. Delgado. I last saw the students in December, when I helped them identify many of the plants they had brought in as potentials to use in their wreaths - it was great to see them having such a great time with the wreath-making process. After the students completed their wreaths and essays, the teachers selected eleven of the finest in late January to send to Kona Kai for judging to determine which five wreaths/essays would be sent to London for the final round of judging, the winning submissions of which will be displayed during the 2012 Olympic Games. That March 9th morning, I was to announce and present awards to those students whose entries were being sent to London.

I had quite a crowd waiting and the anticipation was so thick you couldn't even cut it with a bandsaw.

Before getting into that, let me give you a bit of background as to what happened between January and March, leading up to the awards ceremony. After receiving the eleven chosen entries, we worked to put together a panel of judges as I began the objective process of evaluating each submission for its satisfaction of required criteria, checking to make sure: the wreath is made only of plants; a minimum of three plants are used in the wreath; correct common and scientific names are given for each plant; the plants used are representative of southern Florida (the Keys in particular); a conservation message is included for one plant; and a 500 word rationale is provided for plant choices. On February 23rd, we brought in our panel of judges, which included Jon Olsen, our local 5-time Olympic medal-winner; Connie Chapell, an esteemed local educational consultant; and Ronnie Harris, our own artistic expert here at Kona Kai. After a couple long and grueling hours of careful and meticulous evaluation, our judges had selected the Top Five wreaths to send to London, based on averages of their scores using a detailed standard rubric put together by BGCI and Fairchild, encompassing both wreath design and essay quality.

Our judges hard at work, and me - probably doodling epic wreath designs.

We now had our winners and were ready to set up an awards ceremony at Key Largo School, which brings us back up to March 9th. To start off the ceremony, I recognized each of the students involved in the eleven submissions to Kona Kai (which all met the requirements) by calling them up individually and presenting them with a family day-pass to Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden:

The students involved in the eleven submissions sent to Kona Kai, sporting their Fairchild passes.

After this, it was time for me to announce the Top 5 entries that were selected to be sent to London; the moment the students were looking forward to since December, no doubt with countless sleepless nights and almost unbearable suspense, which you have likely been experiencing as well. I'm happy to say you can look forward to a good rest tonight because here are the winners from the Kona Kai judging, whose wreaths and essays have been submitted to and received by BGCI in London to await the final round of judging (photos by Patricia Joy of Key Largo School):

In a tie for 4th/5th place - Luis De La Fuente (pictured on left) / Victoria Ellis (pictured on right), Nick Perez and Jerryck Ornelas

3rd place - Amy Warnaar (pictured) and Taryn McCain

2nd Place - Brittney Doyle (pictured), Lauren Leach and Hannah Boehm

1ST PLACE - Bridget Welsh (pictured) and Emily O'Connor

In addition to our Top 5, we also had an Honorable Mention done by Bailey Williams, Haylee Curry and Elise Anderson. 

The judges gave Awards of Merit to a select few entries as well:

-For wreath design and presentation - Eric Kruger and Tyler Prenesti

-For most traditional / authentic Olympic-style wreath - Lauren McCormick

-Judges' favorite essay - Hanna Boehm, Brittney Doyle and Lauren Leach

-Judges' favorite wreath - Bridget Welsh and Emily O'Connor

The students who were involved in the making of the Top 5 entries received, in addition to the Fairchild family day-passes, a native Florida thatch palm seedling from our Gardens and a certificate (the demand for which can only be accurately likened to that for Golden Tickets to Wonka's chocolate factory) for each student and a guest to join me for an ethnobotanic tour of the Gardens here at Kona Kai. Here's a final picture of students involved in the Top 5 entries, along with the three teachers (L-R Ms. Burson, Ms. Prew, Ms. Delgado) who participated in this year's Competition:

Our first try at bringing one of the Fairchild Challenges to schools here in the Keys ended up being a great success for all involved. I should be hearing from London about the results from the final judging in May or June (more suspense!), so I'll be sure to post when I hear back from them. In the meantime, we're looking forward to the "challenges" next school year may bring!

Rick Hederstrom

Associate Director

Plant Champions Olympic Wreath Competition

Back in October, I introduced you all to the Plant Champions Olympic Wreath Competition that The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai Resort has been working to bring to students down here in the Florida Keys in collaboration with Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden and BGCI.  I left you hanging with the knowledge that I would be introducing the Competition to classes sometime soon.  I can proudly report today that I have completed the introductions and have come back alive against all odds with tales to tell and pictures to share.

I didn't really know what to expect going into the introductions.  I soon found out, however, that the students were surprisingly attentive, receptive and even enthusiastic about what I had to say. Many students raised their hands to participate whenever I posed a question and gave me very little trouble.  I say "very little" because there seems to always be a student interested in finding opportunities to be funny during a presentation.  During one of my introductions, one such student made himself known.  I was giving examples of how plants are used and was talking about their use as perfume/cologne ingredients.  The student loudly interjected with "Wait, I thought perfumes and colognes were made of whale blubber."  I must have been on my game that day because I was able to return fire (good-naturedly and in the spirit of fun, of course) immediately with "There may be a few, and although I'm not going to judge you based on your choice to perfume yourself with whale fat, I'm interested to know how it's working for you."  I got quite a bit of laughs from the quick response, a bushel of street cred points and un-interrupted attention from the whole class for the rest of the presentation.

Classroom introduction to the Competition.

Helping the students identify their plants.

As you can see in the pictures above, many of the students brought in plant parts for me to help them identify or determine if they are native to the Keys.  It was a little challenging at times because some of the students had only brought in a single leaf or even part of a leaf.  Luckily, I was born with a right eye that has a built-in plant DNA analyzer wirelessly linked to the world's best plant name databases, enabling me to determine plant identity in only a few seconds, so it really wasn't an issue. After giving the introductions, the classes went ahead with the Competition and began assembling wreaths later on in the week.  I have some excellent pictures of the wreath-making and it is quite hard to choose only a few to share with you.  We will be putting together an Olympic Wreath Competition photo album on our Facebook page, which will have many more photos, at a later date - so keep an eye out for that.  In the meantime, here is a sample of pictures taken during the in-class wreath-making (photos by Patricia Joy of Key Largo School):

Students using a book to identify their plants.

Putting the wreath together.

The students all seemed to have a great time making the wreaths.

A wreath nearly complete.

Great stuff.  It's awesome to see such enthusiasm and fun while learning about our native plants and their importance to us as well as the greater natural environment, all of which is core to the mission of The Botanic Gardens at Kona Kai Resort.  Look forward to more on the Competition in the months to come!

Rick Hederstrom

Associate Director