The Cook County Envirothon team with part of their project, a mock up of a fictional town that needed to improve its forest area. Students had to research and find solutions and then present their ideas to a panel of judges. (L-R) Linnea Henrikson, Lucy Callender, Andy Kern, Claire Sherburne, Maya McHugh.
Envirothon is an academic competition in which students, in teams of five, take exams to assess their knowledge about the environment and develop a presentation to share their solution to a problem.
The problem for the 2015 competition was released in January and that is when the preparation for the regional tournament begins. This year’s scenario dealt with urban forestry. There were several issues within a fictional town that needed to be corrected and the students were given a $10,000 budget to fix the problems and improve the town’s forest.
Cook County High School team members were 9th graders Maya McHugh, Lucy Callender, Linnea Henrikson, Andy Kern, and Claire Sherburne.
They tackled this problem with lots of ideas and they spent many hours researching and broadening their possible solutions to their problem. They were then able to come together with a plan and prepare a 10-minute presentation to share their ideas.
Our team did a great job with this aspect of the competition.
They also did well on the exams, which were on current events, soils, water, forestry, and wildlife.
At the regional tournament back on May 4 they did so well they tied for 3rd place, which earned them a place at the state competition.
On Monday, May 18, we headed down to Cloquet Forestry Center, which is where the state competition was held. This group did a great job and they finished in 10th place out of 27 teams (these are not just “small” schools either. Hopkins High School was the first place team, earning them a place at the national competition.)
This young group of CCHS students really was impressive and they held their own. I am looking forward to watching this group’s knowledge grow and seeing their continued improvement in Envirothon competitions to come.
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