Caroline's high school environmental sciences team competition is called Envirothon and is difficult to describe. This year her team won the Massachusetts event in May, which allowed them to travel to Sackville, New Brunswick in July for the (inter)national competition. The organizers took many photos and now I can finally explain what is Envirothon.
The team has 5 students and their teacher coach
There were 49 teams in total representing US states, Canadian provinces, and two countries - Singapore and China
There were 6 events: Forestry, Aquatics, Soils, and Wildlife had written / practical exams and then the "current issue topic", which changes every year, had a written test and oral presentation.
Everyone on the team can help answer questions on the tests
In Wildlife, one topic was how to tell how old a deer was based on its teeth
Prior to the national meet, Caroline's team received special training from experts in Massachusetts, like how Haymitch trained Katniss in the Hunger Games
The material on the tests is specific to each host region. The Massachusetts team has benefited from this year's location in New Brunswick and last year's location in Ohio, which are not so different in trees, wildlife, soils, and water resources from the Bay State. The poor kids from New Mexico or China are at a disadvantage. Here at the estuary overlook they were identifying waterfowl for Wildlife
Caroline specializes in Wildlife and Forestry. The Science Olympiad competition has a Forestry event where she doubles-up on her tree ID skills
Pine trees are tricky and apparently this was a tough one
After looking for pine cones she correctly ID'd it as a red spruce
They had to identify tree pests and describe adequate ways to control them
Soils is about chemical composition of dirt and rocks as well as methods of land use. Here they are reading a LIDAR map of the area.
The lone senior on the team, Jaime is an all-around whiz kid and especially in earth sciences
In Aquatics they used a hydrometer to measure how much water is in the bay
After the testing day there was a day off, where the kids toured Saint John. Then Thursday they were sequestered in a dorm room for 6 hours to prepare their oral presentation. Caroline says that their snack of ketchup potato chips kept them focused and energized.
The current issue topic was "climate change in your community". On Friday oral presentations were made to the judges and scored. Then the scores were totaled from the 6 events and the top 3 overall teams repeated their presentations to the entire audience. Teams' home locations were blinded during the process and the final presentations were live-streamed out. The first team to present was from Ontario.
Is that Canadian or American dollars?
Next up was Pennsylvania
At this point I was nervous MA didn't make the final 3
But then Caroline and co. came out as the final presenters
Caroline spoke about managing invasive woody adelgids and green crabs. Climate change stresses ecosystems and allows range expansion of forest and aquatic pests.
Then it was up to the judges
Before the overall winner was announced, the top team for each of the 5 written tests was recognized. When only one team was announced, we realized that MA had swept #1 in all 5 written events
Then it was on to the big checks
They won, each taking home $3,000! Thank you National Conservation Foundation and all of the sponsors and organizers.
Here's the whole contingent, including the coach and his family as well as Jaime's Dad, who drove the team up and stayed for the return journey. Caroline came back with a mild case of COVID, but fortunately didn't pass it on to anyone in our family.
Next year the competition is at Hobart and William Smith Colleges on Seneca Lake in Geneva, NY.
Caroline contributed some of her own photos of team activities like: ketchup tasting
Caricature drawing
and visiting the Bay of Fundy
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