Newton North Takes 1st Place in Envirothon Competition

For the 5th time in 6 years, Newton North's Envirothon team has taken top honors at the annual statewide competition. Besting 26 other teams, participating students included:

Captains: junior Laura Schmidt-Hong and senior Einat Gavish

Competing Team Members: senior Cody Kotake, juniors Gus Betts-O'Roark, Ethan Gahm, Eve Martin, and Jessica Chen, sophomores Emily Davis-Morin and Abby Lau, freshman Maddie Antonellis

For the past school year, high school students across the commonwealth have been studying watersheds, water infrastructure and the impact of recent damaging storms in their community, and formulating steps their local leaders can take to protect land and water ecosystems in the watershed.

They presented their findings at the 31st annual Massachusetts Envirothon competition on Friday, May 18th at the Blackstone River and Canal Heritage State Park in Uxbridge, Mass. The approximately 200 students from 27 Massachusetts communities also tested their knowledge of the area’s soils, forests, water, and wildlife as part of the competition.

At this outdoor field event, teams rotated through four “ecostations” where they answered written questions and engaged in hands-on activities such as soil analysis, wildlife habitat assessment, tree identification, and water quality measures. Each team had up to 10 participants and split into specialized sub-teams during the competition, each focusing their efforts at different ecostations.

At the fifth station, the Current Issue, each team gave a 15-minute presentation on “Partnering with Nature in Watersheds” to a panel of judges. Teams researched the Current Issue in their own community in preparation for their presentation. Teams were asked to assess water infrastructure resources and needs, identify an important partnering opportunity, and make specific recommendations for action.

"I am enormously proud of the outstanding accomplishment of our Envirothon team, who have been preparing diligently and collaboratively since September for last week's state-wide event," said Ann Dannenberg, Envirothon advisor and member of the Newton North Science Department." The team has a long history of mentorship of newer members by experienced members of the team, and this year was no exception. What is just as remarkable about this extraordinary group of environmentally passionate students is that other coaches and judges took the time to remark to me that they were also extremely gracious, friendly, and collegial with the adults and other students at the competition."

North students now have the opportunity to to represent Massachusetts in the North American Envirothon, which will be held July 22-28 in Pocatello, Idaho. For more information on the Massachusetts Envirothon visit www.massenvirothon.org.