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MAY 31, 2011 -- The Housatonic Valley Regional High School team continues to build its reputation as the team to reckon with in the annual Envirothon competition. The 2007 North American champions are poised to go on to further victory in 2011 after a first-place finish at the state level last Friday for the school’s Agriscience team. The team took top honors in aquatics, forestry and wildlife stations.
The students competed against 35 other schools at the 20th State Connecticut Envirothon held at Rocky Neck State Park in Old Lyme.
This is Housatonic’s fourth first-place finish in the state competition and its student competitors have traveled and competed across the nation and into Canada for international competitions in the North America Canon Envirothon.
Competing on the Agriscience team were senior Ryan Long, a four-year member of the team from Canaan; Emily Studer, also a four-year member from Kent; Becket Harney, a Lakeville sophomore competing for the second year; junior Emma Okell of Sharon, a second-year member, and Corwnall’s Brian Saccardi, a sophomore who joined the team this year.
The HVRHS School Team placed second in the state Envirothon, finishing first in both the soils/land use category and the current issue/oral presentation stations. Team members included Matt Matsudaira from Cornwall, a second-year team member; Jordan Long from Canaan, also a second-year member; Monica Chin, a first-year team member from Lakeville; Patrick McGuire, a first-year member from Sharon, and Nate Brooks, a first-year member from Canaan. All are sophomores.
In addition to the two teams that were fielded, three HVRHS students attended as wildcard competitors: sophomore Christian Allyn and freshmen Cristian Umana, and Patrick Purdy. These students paired up with students from other schools to make a team and to build experience in all phases of the Envirothon except the oral presentation/current issue.
During the contest, the students competed to achieve the highest score by answering dozens of questions at five stations, each focused on a different topic—soils, wildlife, forestry, aquatics and this year’s current issue, salt and fresh water estuaries.
In addition to answering a list of questions at each station, each group of five students gives an oral presentation to a panel of judges at the end of the day. Volunteers from state and federal agencies as well as environmental services companies and universities run the stations and serve as judges.
This year’s HVRHS Agriscience team, along with two alternates drawn from the second-place HVRHS Team, Jordan Long and Matt Matusudaira, will now advance to the North American Canon Envirothon to be held at Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada, July 24-29.
“The Bay of Fundy is an excellent place for this year’s Envirothon as the North American theme this year was the protection of estuaries,” said team advisor Dave Moran, an agri-science teacher at HVRHS. “Connecticut’s oral presentation was focused on nitrogen levels in Long Island Sound and the impact that our local watershed may have in contributing to hypoxia in it. Students chose two areas—agricultural and residential—to focus on, eliminating the areas of transportation and commercial uses. The students learned about the innovative practices that local dairies use to limit nitrogen while still providing food for the area. In the residential sector, students focused on lawn care practices, and keeping aging septic systems current or switching to town sewer altogether.”
The two seniors on the HVRHS team have long experience with the Envirothon process and one, Miss Studer, has decided on environmental science as her college major. Mr. Long will study communications.
Ms. Studer said that the students who take part in Envirothon are all bright, but that they are drawn from a number of academic disciplines. They have to be bright and dedicated, she said, because the work entailed in researching and preparing for the competition amounts to taking an additional course of study.
This year, for instance, they had to develop a plan for mitigating hypoxia in Long Island Sound using Canaan as its source of pollution because of the amount of agriculture found in that town. “We were surprised to find how much the farmers were already doing to prevent nitrogen from getting into the rivers,” she said with gratification.
The students will now take the next six weeks to prepare further for the Canon Envirothon, meeting during the summer recess to practice and taking materials home to study. In addition, they will have to raise money for the trip.
The cost of sending one member is approximately $1,300 and those interested in helping to fund these students and a chaperone, should contact David Moran at 860/824 5123 ext. 463 or dmoran@hvrhs.org.
The Northwest Conservation District sponsors the local team and Canon USA and Canon Canada Corporation sponsor the summer event.
In addition, the Housatonic Valley Envirothon Team has been asked to help host a Junior Envirothon competition at Goodwin College this year. Members from both teams and wildcards have been asked to be a part of this and Lee Kellogg School in Falls Village has indicated its interest in learning about this competition.
The Envirothon competitions are not the only contests the young people have been involved in this year. Four members of the Envirothon teams also competed in the FFA Environmental/Natural Resources Career Development Event held at the University of Connecticut in April and placed first in the state out of 10 teams. This team will compete in Indianapolis in October with up to 50 teams.
Team members were Emily Studer, first in the state, Ryan Long, second in the state, Brian Saccardi, seventh in the state and Jordan Long, ninth in the state. |
