BELLOWS FALLS — The Bellows Falls Union High School Envirothon team nabbed three top awards at the Vermont State Envirothon May 14, and is advancing to the nationals.
The Terriers brought two main teams and an alternate team. Team A won the forestry division with a score of 95, a record for the division statewide.
They also took first place overall, which means they'll advance to the national competition, The Canon Envirothon, to be held in Bozeman, Mont., this summer.
Just as impressive, Team B won the oral presentation for current issues, and took third place overall.
And for the first time in competition history, the Bellows Falls alternate team took a first place trophy in the soils division, scoring higher than the main teams in the competition.
Envirothon students learn about environmental issues and how to apply critical thinking and problem solving to real-world, large-scale issues. The competition is content-driven, and the Envirothon students at Bellows Falls Union High School work all year as an after-school club. They use the outdoors as an alternative to classroom.
Susan Steiner, BFUHS science teacher and Envirothon coach, said judges and the students' competitors were very impressed with Bellows Falls.
“Jaws dropped when the announcement of our alternates winning the soil division came; people just couldn't believe it,” Steiner said.
She said she was very proud of all of her students and that both team A and team B were well prepared.
“The oral competition is the hardest. Everyone on the team has to present their findings orally, and to have one of our teams take first place in the oral was huge,” Steiner said.
Steiner will travel with Team A to Montana Aug. 4-10 to represent Vermont in the national competition. The Vermont contest was at Edward F. Kehoe Conservation Camp in Castleton.
The competition is centered on soils/land use, aquatic ecology, forestry, wildlife, and a topical environmental issue. Teams generally consist of five students.
Real-world issues on the farm
To prepare for the state heat, Bellows Falls Envirothon students were tasked to find a farm that had implemented a management program for sustainable grazing. They settled on Livewater Farm, a horse- and machine-powered grass-based dairy farm in Westminster West.
There, they learned how Livewater manages its grasslands, what issues were solved, and which remained.
Students worked on ideas to improve the farm's practices, and honed their presentation skills in proposing their suggestions to farm owners. Electronic presentation aids were not allowed, only posters, skits, and other displays.
According to Steiner, the program's natural setting immerses students in ecological thinking. Working as a team in and out of the class, students learn to incorporate science-based investigations in helping to explore environmental issues.
The North American Envirothon is a nonprofit organization headquartered in League City, Texas, and is sponsored by Canon USA, the National Association of Conservation Districts, the United States Forest Service, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and the National Conservation Foundation.