West Canada Valley High School’s Team A took top honors Wednesday in the annual Envirothon, this year held at Herkimer County Community College.
WCV Team A finished first with a score of 336 out of the possible 500 points. WCV Team B finished second with 276 points, just ahead of Mount Markham Team B, which tallied 272 points to finish third.
Since the Envirothon started in the area in 1991, the Leatherstocking Region Envirothon included Otsego, Montgomery and Herkimer Counties. The three counties would rotate which county the Envirothon was held in.
This year, Herkimer County held its own Envirothon.
The Envirothon is an outdoor competition designed to give high school students, grades 9-12, an opportunity to answer questions at five stations on aquatics, soils, forestry, wildlife and current issues. The students are given 30 minutes at each station which includes time for each of the people running the station to go over the answers after the test is through. The scorekeepers then grade each of the tests and the team with the highest cumulative score is declared the winner. A short ceremony was held to announce the winner following the competition.
Coordinator of the event Gerry Smithson said there were five area schools competing on Wednesday. Each school is allowed to have up to two teams with five students on each team. The schools participating were Poland, Mount Markham, West Canada Valley, Frankfort and Mohawk. Each school participating Wednesday had two teams.
Smithson said members of the Department of Environmental Conservation, members of the Natural Resources Conservation Division and some of Herkimer County Community College professors assisted in writing the tests the students took.
“The key people here are the people that helped put this together and all the volunteers,” Smithson said. “This is the first time up here at the college and they’ve been very supportive up here. This is the perfect spot for the stations.”
Smithson also said that many of the students have an interest in the environment and going into a related field of study after high school.
“This is great for students to learn more about the environment and what’s to come,” he said.
Mount Markham team member, Courtney Ferguson said she didn’t necessarily want to go into a field of study about the environment, but she was having a good time.
“I’ve learned a lot,” Ferguson said. “It’s been fun to be here.”
Smithson said now that Herkimer County has it’s own Envirothon he hopes to get more schools involved in it since it will be held in a centrally located place which is easier for many schools to get to.
“Five schools is the most we’ve had so far,” Smithson said. “We already have some commitments for next year like BOCES and Owen D. Young school.”
The Herkimer County Envirothon is solely paid for by donations by solo contributors, townships, the Herkimer County Soil and Water Conservation District and others.
WCV Team A will now make their way to the state competition which is being held May 21 and 22 at SUNY-Cobleskill, where about 50 schools from across the state will compete for the state title.
Smithson said at the state competition, the local teams have placed as high as 10th.