The state Environmental Natural Resources CDE will be held at the
State FFA Center on Super Saturday, March 20.  The top two area
winning teams will advance to compete in this CDE.  Registration for
this CDE will be from 8:30 to 8:45 am in the center section of Walters
Hall.  Instruction for the CDE will start at 8:45 am.   This CDE is a
four person team with all four scores counting.  The state CDE will
consist of the team activity exam (students can work together on this
section), the GPS event and the identification activity.  Students
should bring a clipboard, a GPS unit and pencils.    A word bank will
be provided for the id section.  Please see the information below from
John Allen Bailey for more detailed information on the GPS event.
Please respond to this email if you have a team competing and provide
me with the name of your FFA Chapter, your name as the Advisor, which
FFA Area you are representing and the names of your four FFA team
members.

We look forward in seeing your team on March 20.

Several of you have asked about how the GPS portion of the ENR CDE
will be conducted this year at state.  I hope the following will help
explain the GPS portion.  Students should bring a 12 channel GPS unit
with them to the CDE.  I would suggest that each team have at least 2
units.  The map datum needs to be set on NAD83 and the coordinate
system should be set to degrees/minutes/seconds.  If your particular
unit breaks the seconds down to tenths of seconds, that is OK.  They
will need to always set the tenths to 0(zero).  The students will be
given the first latitude and longitude of the first placard they are
to locate.  When they arrive at this point there will be a card
stapled to the placard that has a number that corresponds to the first
location point they were to find.  There will also be a scientific
name of one of the trees listed on the Identification portion of the
CDE.  They need to copy this down on their answer sheet and they look
and see what number the card tells them to go to next.  This number
will be the second location point.  The latitude and longitude for
this point will be listed under the point number.  They will enter
this into their GPS and locate it.  They repeat this process until
they find frour (4) points.  After finding and recording the 4th point
they will return to the starting station.  Here they need to write in
the Common Names of the trees they located.  Time will end when they
turn their paper in.  Please remember that this is a timed event.
They have 30 minutes to find all 4 and write the common names.  2
point will be deducted for each minute over 30 that it takes them to
complete this portion of the CDE.  Time will be called after 45
minutes.  I hope this helps you properly prepare for the GPS portion
of the ENR CDE.  If you have any questions, please feel free to
contact me and Good Luck on Super Saturday.

--
John Allen Bailey
Central Region Forestry Teacher
711 Kite Hwy.
Swainsboro, GA  30401
478-494-8705

--
Blane Marable
201 Four Towers - UGA
Athens, GA 30602
706-542-9793
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