Massachusetts State Grange will again sponsor the 2023 EnviroTrek Lunch at the Massachusetts Envirothon Competition on May 25th, 2023 at Blackstone River and Canal Heritage State Park in Uxbridge. Massachusetts Envirothon is extremely grateful for their continued support!
Additionally, $1500 in scholarships will be made available to teams for the 2022-2023 program year..
Teams are be invited to propose how they would spend this scholarship money – e.g. Envirothon related equipment, field trips, transportation, or registration. Priority will be given to new teams, teams that have not been awarded grants previously, and teams with financial need.
To apply, fill out the form below! Applications are due by Feb 17, 2023 @ 5pm. MESC will vote in early March and teams will be notified soon after.
“Achieving a Zero Waste Future for Massachusetts” was the Current Issue
Lexington High School – The overall top scoring team
BELCHERTOWN, Mass., May 12, 2022 – For the past school year, 100 high school students from 14 Massachusetts communities across the commonwealth have been studying the possibility of achieving a zero-waste future for Massachusetts, as well as increasing their knowledge of soils, water, forests and wildlife. They tested their knowledge and presented their findings at the 35th annual Massachusetts Envirothon competition on Thursday, May 12th at the Quabbin Reservoir in Belchertown, Mass.
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 testing. Each team had up to 10 participants.
At the fifth station, the Current Issue, each team gave a 15-minute presentation on “Achieving a Zero Waste Future for Massachusetts” to a panel of judges. Teams had been researching the Current Issue in their own community in preparation for their presentation. Each panel of judges included concerned citizens and environmental professionals from government agencies, non-profit organizations, academia and private industry. Teams were asked to envision a zero-waste future and what changes would be required in how we produce, distribute, sell, and use products and services as a society to achieve it.
This year’s top scoring teams are:
Overall:
1.
Lexington High School
2.
The Groton School
3.
Shepherd Hill Regional High School
4.
Doherty Memorial High School
5.
Acton-Boxborough Regional High School
Current Issue presentation:
1.
Lexington High School, Blue team
2.
The Groton School, Blue team
3.
Doherty Memorial High School, Gold team
Forests ecostation:
1.
Lexington High School, Blue team
2.
Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School
3.
Lexington High School, Green team
Soils ecostation:
1.
Lexington High School, Blue team
2.
The Groton School, Green team
3
The Groton School, Blue team
Water ecostation:
1.
Lexington High School, Blue team
2.
Lexington High School, Green team
3.
The Groton School, Blue team
Wildlife ecostation:
1.
Lexington High School, Blue team
2.
Lexington High School, Green team
3.
The Groton School, Blue team
“These teams work hard getting to know their local ecosystems and how their communities depend on them. We test their scientific knowledge, but we also like to hear their stories about how they have gotten muddy, cold, and tired, and otherwise had fun and fallen in love with nature in their neighborhood. The best hope for the future comes from engaged, scientifically literate citizens who care about their communities and the environment,” said Kelley Freda of the Mass. Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Division of Water Supply Protection and Chair of the Massachusetts Envirothon Steering Committee.
“The Envirothon is more than just a competition about environmental knowledge. Many teams have taken what they’ve learned and put it to work in an action/service project in their community. The program aims to prepare the next generation for the stewardship work that needs to be done,” said Freda. “And this annual competition actually becomes a festive gathering of the environmental community of Massachusetts where students learn from the environmental professionals and the environmental professionals learn from the students.”
The overall winning team will have the opportunity to represent Massachusetts in the North American Envirothon, which will be held July 24-30, 2022 at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
The 2022 Massachusetts Envirothon is made possible through the contributions of partnering agencies and organizations, including financial support from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy & Environmental Affairs, the U.S. Forest Service, the Massachusetts Grange, Environmental Business Council of New England, Smithfield Foods, the Society of Soil Scientists of Southern New England, and local conservation districts.
Fifteen federal and state environmental agencies, conservation districts, non-profit organizations, higher educational institutions, and businesses provide expertise and help organize the event. Dozens of volunteers were also on hand for the competition to handle all the event logistics from setting up tents, tables and chairs, checking-in teams, serving food, scoring tests and cleaning up.
For this year’s event, compostable products were sourced for the food tent and City Compost and the Millbury Environmental Council assisted in sorting waste, resulting in less than a grocery bag of waste for the landfill. For more information on the Massachusetts Envirothon visit www.massenvirothon.org.
Congratulations to Groton School’s Envirothon team their 4th place finish at the 2021 Virtual NCF Envirothon!
Led by captain Amy Ma, Groton School students Amelia Lee, Alice Liu, Aisling O’Connell, and Aidan O’Connell worked hard in June and July to prepare for the Virtual NCF (National Conservation Foundation) competition hosted by the Nebraska Association of Resources Districts.
The team took 5 one hour tests on Monday with a proctor and used resources sent from Nebraska to complete the station tests in Aquatics, Wildlife, Soils, Forestry and the Current Environmental Issue: Water Resources Management: Local Control and Local Solutions. Their oral presentation was conducted over Zoom on Tuesday.
Big thanks to coach Dr. David Black Jr for his support, and Groton School staff for accommodating the team at the last minute as well as to the O’Connell family for hosting the far-flung students during the competition days. Preparing for the event this year took at lot of flexibility and creativity on top of mastering a mountain of virtual information! The MA Envirothon Steering Committee is very proud of this novice team and looks forward to their continued participation.
2021 Virtual Massachusetts Envirothon winners announced
WESTFORD, Mass., May 25, 2021 – The results are in from the 2020-2021 Massachusetts Envirothon education program and competition for high school students, which was held remotely due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The Groton School was the top overall scoring team and will represent Massachusetts at the 2021 National Envirothon Competition being held virtually in July 2021.
The competition included two components, for which teams prepared for and presented remotely: the Natural Resource Challenge and the Current Issue. This year’s Current Issue topic was “Water Resource Management and Climate Change.” Winners were determined based on overall combined scores for both components.
Lexington High School placed second and Newton South High School placed third overall in the competition.
Eight teams, with three to 10 members each, participated: Acton Boxborough Regional High School, Brockton High School / Wildlands Trust, The Groton School, Lexington High School, Millbury Jr. Sr. High School, Newton South High School, Quabbin Regional High School and Shepherd Hill Regional High School (Dudley/Charlton).
The Natural Resource Challenge allowed teams to apply their knowledge of the four natural resource topic areas – soil, wildlife, water, and forest – by taking on the role of an environmental consultant. Each team submitted a 30-minute or less video presentation on their review of a fictional school building proposal. The school was to be built on a currently forested woodlands and wetlands parcel owned by a town. In their video presentations, teams identified environmental or human health issues and determined if this was the best placement for the proposed school and supporting services. They also used GIS mapping and answered questions about site soils, the Mass Wetlands Protection Act, carbon sequestration, drinking water regulations and wildlife. The Groton School (first place), Lexington (second place) and Newton South (third place) scored the highest for this challenge.
For the Current Issue portion of the Envirothon program, each team explored a significant environmental issue as it occurs in their own community and produced a 10-minute video on their research. Panels of five judges reviewed these videos and then engaged in twenty minutes of questions and discussion with each team in a live on-line meeting. To make the competition as fair as possible in this new format, a second round of judging was added, with a single panel of judges reviewing and ranking the three top scoring presentations: The Groton School (first), Lexington High School (second) and Acton-Boxboro Regional High School (third).
The Massachusetts Envirothon challenges young people to get outdoors and explore, gaining hands-on knowledge and experience of Massachusetts ecosystems. They engage with their communities and develop skills for investigating local environmental issues, and learn how to actively participate in community decisions.
The competition provides a challenge that allows participants to test their environmental knowledge and skills.
“We hope that Envirothon participants will grow in their commitment to stewardship of the environment and natural resources, and cultivate their curiosity and love of learning,” said Mass. Envirothon Steering Committee Chair Kelley Freda of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation- Division of Water Supply Protection. “The Envirothon also increases students’ awareness of career opportunities in the environmental field.”
The 2020-2021 Massachusetts Envirothon was made possible through the contributions of partnering agencies and organizations, including financial support from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy & Environmental Affairs, the U.S. Forest Service, the Massachusetts Grange, Environmental Business Council of New England, individual contributions and local conservation districts.
Multiple federal and state environmental agencies, conservation districts, non-profit organizations, higher educational institutions, and businesses are involved in planning and delivering the Massachusetts Envirothon program each year. For more information on the Massachusetts Envirothon visit www.massenvirothon.org.
8 Teams submitted videos for the 2021 Virtual MA Envirothon Current Issue: Water Management and Climate Change. We hope you’ll enjoy watching them as much as we did!
In response to the coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020, the Massachusetts Envirothon program replaced its annual large, outdoor, in-person competition, which had been scheduled for May 14th, with an experiment in online team presentations.
“We told teams that this was not intended to be an academic exercise; we were asking them to produce a video that presented a message they felt was important for their communities to hear,” said Will Snyder, of UMass Extension’s 4-H Youth Development Program, who developed background materials and guidelines for teams with extensive input from members of the Massachusetts Envirothon Steering Committee and Council.
In place of the usual five-part competition, the Massachusetts Envirothon offered teams a single real-life challenge: teams were invited to submit an online audio-visual presentation in the form of a message to their communities. The presentations were reviewed by more than 30 environmental professionals, who offered comments.
“We provided a review process to provide feedback that would help them sharpen and clarify their presentations if they chose,” said Snyder.
Teams were given several options for developing their presentations:
Focus on the planned 2020 Current Issue, Sustainable Safe Water Supply, drawing on all the Envirothon natural resource management topics to answer the question: What actions should our communities take now to ensure an ecologically healthy and resilient water supply for the future?
Widen their focus to look at the ways the world is changing in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, and think about what that means for their community, and the world.
Combine these two choices or determine their own focus.
“The full story of this learning experience is told not only in the videos that the teams created, but also in the comments from the reviewers,” said Snyder. A representative sample of review comments are included with each video.
The Massachusetts Envirothon is made possible through the contributions of partnering agencies and organizations, including financial support from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy & Environmental Affairs, the U.S. Forest Service, the Massachusetts Grange, Environmental Business Council of New England, Wegman’s supermarkets and local conservation districts. Fifteen federal and state environmental agencies, conservation districts, non-profit organizations, higher educational institutions, and businesses provide expertise and help organize the event.
We hope you are well and staying safe in these unprecedented times. Due to the many uncertainties going forward, we have decided to replace the 2020 Massachusetts Envirothon competition scheduled for May 14th with an experiment in online team presentations. There will be no face-to-face event at the Quabbin on May 14.
The MA Envirothon Steering Committee and Council have developed an alternative to the competition- a non-competitive, digital opportunity for teams to be creative and share the hard work accomplished this year. This alternative will be submitted as a “team presentation” with the requirement that teams comply with social distancing rules. Submission deadline has been extended to May 14.
The Massachusetts State Grange will again sponsor the 2020 EnviroTrek Lunch at the Massachusetts Envirothon Competition on May 14th, 2020 at Quabbin Reservoir in Belchertown. Massachusetts Envirothon is extremely grateful for their continued support!
Five $300 scholarships will be made available to teams for the 2019-2020 program year.
Teams will be invited to propose how they would spend this scholarship money – e.g. Envirothon related equipment, field trips, transportation, or registration.” Priority will be given to new teams, teams that have not been awarded grants previously, and teams with financial need.
To apply, fill out the form below! Applications are due by Feb 14, 2020 @ 5pm. MESC will vote on March 12, 2020 and teams will be notified soon after.
Check out this great article about Envirothon featured in the Massachusetts Wildlife magazine this summer!
“Faces of Conservation salutes the energy and enthusiasm of the upcoming
generation of conservation-minded citizens and the support of Massachusetts
Envirothon partners!” Article PDF
assachusetts State Grange will again sponsor the 2020 EnviroTrek Lunch at the Massachusetts Envirothon Competition on May 14th, 2020 at Quabbin Reservoir in Belchertown. Massachusetts Envirothon is extremely grateful for their continued support!
Massachusetts Envirothon 