Texas Teens in Top Five at 2006 Canon Envirothon Competition
The five-member team from John Cooper High School located in The Woodlands, Texas won third place overall at the 18th Annual 2006 Canon Envirothon and they also had the highest score in the wildlife field station. Winners were announced Friday, July 28, during closing ceremonies of the North American environmental education competition held at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada, July 23-29.
Team members from the John Cooper High School include: Melisa Pferdehirt, Gerardo Mijares-Shafei, Joseph Rosenthal, Sannya Hede, and Tony Valderrama. Team advisors who accompanied the students were Tina and David Davies. Each team member received a $3000 scholarship from Canon USA to be used at a college or trade school of the student’s choice. The National Association of Conservation Districts / National Conservation Foundation awarded $1000 to the state sponsoring agencies of states that won first place in each of the five field stations. The Texas Envirothon will use the $1000 donation to promote the state program.
Fifty-two teams, 44 from the U.S. and eight from Canada, competed in the 2006 Canon Envirothon, North America’s largest high school environmental education competition. The Canon Envirothon is the final competition in a series of contests beginning each spring that involves more than 500,000 teenagers throughout North America. Each year the international competition is hosted by a different state or providence. Next year’s event will be held in New York.
In written field tests, five-member teams compete in specific knowledge areas including soils/land use, forestry, aquatic ecology, wildlife and a current issue that changes annually. This year’s current issue addressed water stewardship in a changing climate. Teamwork, problem solving and oral presentation skills were evaluated as each team offered a panel of judges an oral presentation containing recommendations for solving the different aspects of this year’s current issue.
The Top Five Teams at the 2006 Canon Envirothon:
First Place: Fort Defiance High School, Fort Defiance, Virginia
Second Place: Pencrest High School, Media, Pennsylvania
Third Place: The John Cooper School, The Woodlands, Texas
Fourth Place: El Camino Real High School, Woodland Hills, California
Fifth Place: Chardon High School, Chardon, Ohio
The Texas Envirothon is sponsored by the Environmental Institute of Houston, University of Houston-Clear Lake, Eastman Chemical Company, Montgomery County SWCD, Harris County SWCD, Texas Association for Environmental Education, and the Texas Association of Environmental Professionals.
Congratulations to the John Cooper High School Team!
For more information about the Texas Envirothon, visit www.texasenvirothon.org
To view a picture of the winning Texas team, and to learn more about the Canon Envirothon go to: http://www.envirothon.org/