Earlier this month, Chris Better and I took a team of five students to participate in the NJ Envirothon for the first time. In fact, we were the first team comprised of “Technology Education/Engineering” students, as the other teams were all assembled by their schools’ science teachers. There were 47 teams participating in total this year. People were quite receptive to our participation because the whole theme of the event was based around solving environmental problems, particularly those dealing with water conservation.
Apparently, this was the 17th year that the Envirothon was held, but unfortunately, was never on our radar. We also found out that the winners of the state and provincial events get to go on to the big event of the year, the Canon Envirothon, where students from more than 40 states and several providences from Canada participate. In this post, I’ll tell you all about this amazing event and share pictures of our team.
In short, the NJ Envirothon is a full day of competitive events (written tests and hands-on problem solving) dealing with different aspects of the environment. The main sponsors of the event are the NJ Association of Conservation Districts and the Department of Agriculture and its State Soil Conservation Committee. Education Coordinator at NJ Department of Agriculture Rich Belcher helped make it all happen.
Students solve problems and show their academic prowess in areas dealing with local soil, water quality, wildlife, forestry and current environmental issues. Since the advisers couldn’t be in contact with the students during the competition, we got to learn about the environment ourselves by taking professional development workshops – I attended one on soil and it really opened my eyes and helped me to understand new ways we might approach composting next year.
After paying only a small fee to register our team, we paid an additional $50 which covered all of our meals, campsite lodging and t-shirts for the events. I still can’t get over how inexpensive it was to participate in such an amazing event. Held at Camp Sacajawea in southern New Jersey, the organizers also threw a bonfire and s’mores social for the students out on the lake the night before the event, and gave an astronomy demonstration where we were able to see the planet Saturn and its rings with a giant telescope!
One last caveat to the event was that our students were selected in advance to be the subject of a television segment for a show called “Classroom Close-Up, NJ.” As a result, my students were followed around all day and interviewed by a photographer and production crew, complete with a boom mic and high-tech HD video camera.
To find out how to get involved wherever you live and teach, visit Envirothon.org.
Our dynamic Envirothon team was made up of seniors Alex Delany, Arthur Dromgoole, Chris Hauck, Ray Kowalski and Mike Weber.
