Montville Competes In State-Wide Envirothon (With Video)

Approximately 220 high school students from around the state met for the culmination of many after-school meetings and weekend workshops at the 20th annual Connecticut Envirothon at Rocky Neck State Park Thursday. 

The competition tests their skills and knowledge of the state's environment and its wildlife and the management issues of each one.  

State Conservationist Jay Mar hopes the program develops the state's future leaders in natural resource management and conservation. 

"It's such a wonderful opportunity for our young people and to build leaders," he said. "We are looking for those future leaders who will protect our natural resources for the future."

This is the first year in recent memory that Montville High School students participated in the event and Heather Muir, a junior and the most veteran member of the school's Environmental Club, with three years under her belt, said she hopes to come back again next year.  

Montville High school senior Peter Lam said the competition was fun and was a good experience. Lam became a member of the school's Environmental Club at the beginning of the school year. 

Muir said the club began the recycling program and organized a flash freeze mob on Arbor Day. Their next event is a sit-in next to the principal's office to protest the school's use of styrofoam lunch trays, she said. 

Students visited five different stations and answered questions about soils, aquatics, forestry, wildlife and this year's current issue, which was salt and fresh water estuaries. The team that answered the most questions correctly qualifies for the North America Envirothon, which is in New Brunswick at the end of July.

Mar said that programs like Envirothon are a vehicle for students to develop an interest in conservation.  

"We have to have the best," he said. "I can see right now (these students) will be future leaders, it takes a program like Envirothon to build that yearning and build the skill set to become the leader."