Awards Ceremony Recording Part 1 Part 2

1st Place Current Issue Presentation (Groton School)

1st Place Natural Resource Challenge Video (Groton School)

Congratulations to all our teams who competed: Acton-Boxborough Regional High School, Brockton High School/Wildlands Trust, Groton School, Lexington High School, Millbury Jr/Sr High School, Newton South High School, Quabbin Regional High School, Shepherd Hill Regional High School. You can view all of the Current Issue Videos here.

The 2021 Massachusetts Envirothon will consist of two virtual presentation components:

1. The Natural Resource Challenge – where teams will demonstrate their understanding of natural resource management and the impact of a (hypothetical) development on soil, water, forest and wildlife resources.   Teams will be provided with some sample practice activities, and background materials on the area to get started. The final challenge will be released mid-March and teams will make a presentation video to be scored by station leaders in early May.

• The Current Issue “Water Resources and Climate Change”  Teams will investigate a wide range of water issues in their home communities, and look at how these issues interact and are changing as climate change accelerates. On the basis of their community research, teams will prepare a short video identifying a critical issue in their community and proposing the best way to address it.  They will discuss these findings and recommendations with a panel of judges via a zoom meeting.   The video’s content and the discussion with judges will be the basis for scoring.  Presentations and discussions will be recorded, and the highest scoring teams will be judged a second time by a final panel to ensure fairness.  A community research checklist is available as a guide to get started.  Technical specifications for video preparation are also posted.  The specific problem/challenge, and the score sheet that judges will use, will be released in mid-February.   There are also three non-competitive awards that teams can earn in conjunction with preparing for the competition:  Community Research Award, Community Action Award, and (special for this remote year) recognition for high quality video presentations.

Accessibility- both projects will rely on free web based mapping programs and digitally available resource files. If internet access is an issue for any teams or team members, paper copies of maps and documents will be made available at no cost. 

Scoring of videos will be focused on content instead of technical video skills, although there is a non-competitive award option for high quality videos!

To Register, fill out this form. There is no registration fee for 2021, but we request that teams commit to participating by April 16th (extended!), and plan on preparing both presentations.  The highest scoring team with at least 5 team members will advance to represent MA at the NCF –Envirothon Virtual/Remote competition in July.  Other prizes and incentives will be announced in the near future.

Timeline:

May 3 – Current Issue presentations due

May 10 – Natural Resource Challenge presentations due

May 11 and 13 – Current Issue Judging via zoom session (times TBA)

May 17-19, top 3 CI presentation evaluations

May 21 Award Ceremony (via zoom) 12-1pm Register here