During this year’s 35th annual National Conservation Foundation-Envirothon (NCF-Envirothon), Rockwood Summit High School placed 23rd overall out of 49 teams. The competition took place in Geneva, New York over the summer from July 28-August 3. The team is managed by science teacher Sarah Moonier and composed of now graduates Kari Koerner, Ally Moonier, Rylee Kyle, and Sophie Pezzani, and current seniors Shekinah Annin and Jonah Roberts (alternate).
More than 500 visitors and 41 state teams, as well as international students from China, Singapore and Canada, participated in solving the five topics: aquatics, forestry, soils, wildlife, and a current environmental issue. In order to compete in the nationals, the team first had to win the Missouri State Competition in May of this year. Annin said that it combines many aspects of the environment.
“Our team of five people takes five packets of tests each with a different subject: forestry, aquatics, soils, wildlife, and a current issue. Our current issue this year was energy. We also prepare an oral presentation about the current issue,” Annin said.
Although the envirothon is complicated, Koerner said the members enjoy it and everything it has to offer, including the struggles of learning new things.
“It’s very cool to get to see topics that we studied appear on the test, and it’s fun to try to figure out an answer to a question that we don’t know,” Koerner said.
Roberts, an alternate for the team, was nervous and didn’t have high expectations for the competition but was proud of his team for the outcome.
“I was thrilled. I wasn’t too confident about my knowledge of the topics, but we got the highest scores in four categories,” Roberts said.
Placing first in the state competition and being able to participate in a national competition was a huge achievement for the school in making a name for themselves; however, Koerner said it didn’t come easily.
“We studied hard over the past year, and we knew what to expect, but we weren’t entirely sure where we would place. At regionals, we definitely felt more prepared than last year because last year was our first time competing. For state, we really wanted to win, but we weren’t sure how the test would go because some of the test writers were different. Winning state was definitely a big shock,” Koerner said.
Everyone had their fair share of work in order to succeed and pull their team to victory, including studying and practicing outside of school to prepare for the competitions, Annin said.
“Since there are five team members and five subjects, we split the subjects between us and become an ‘expert’ in one of them. To prepare for nationals, our sponsor, Mrs. Moonier, created a binder with our assigned subject to study over the summer. We also may meet a few times to learn more about each of the subjects and public speaking,” Annin said.
Each person had something unique to them to answer and present at the convention, which Koerner said means there was independent and class work that involved everyone.
“For the national competition, they send us resource guides for each of our topics, which is really helpful. Each of us has a packet of information that we are taking notes on and studying, then at one of our later meetings, we’ll share what we learned with each other. In my packet [about wildlife], I have a lot of information about restoration and management practices, identification, and New York-specific issues. We use a lot of Kahoots and flashcard games to help us study and to make it more fun,” Koerner said.
