Now in its 16th year, Caring for the Kenai is a unique cooperative effort launched by Unocal Alaska involving local schools, industry, government and businesses. Chevron is continuing this award-winning environmental awareness contest, which challenges area high school students to become actively involved in improving the Alaskan environment. Students are asked to respond to the question: “What can I do, create, invent or improve to better care for the environment of the Kenai Peninsula, or to improve the area’s preparedness for a natural disaster?”
In addition to uniting a wide range of community partners (besides Unocal, these include Agrium, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, Kenai Watershed Forum, Peninsula Clarion, Homer News and the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District), a large measure of the program’s success is the extensive mentoring and volunteer hours that Unocal employees and others contribute to helping students create effective projects.
Many of the student’s ideas have been implemented and are contributing to an improved quality of life in the region. An early winner created a poly-culture greenhouse, which has since become a successful family business. Another student produced an interactive computer program on “The Kenai Peninsula’s Amazing Water Maze” which is being distributed to schools throughout the U.S. by The Nature Conservancy. More recently, a team of high school seniors developed a plan for the rehabilitation of Soldotna Creek Park,a salmon spawning tributary of the Kenai River. With community and city support, they then designed, permitted, acquired funding for and did the labor required to complete the habitat enhancement project.
The Caring for the Kenai model is being exported to other states. “Caring for Washington” was launched in 2001 as a statewide program utilizing interactive video-conferencing technology