One of the Warsaw Community High School Envirothon teams will be participating in international competition in Canada over the summer.
WCHS science teacher Emily Gough told the Warsaw School Board Tuesday that Envirothon is an academic competition that has teams of five work together. It involves students from the U.S., Canada, China and Singapore. It is sponsored by the National Conservation Foundation and at the local levels it is supported by local conservation districts.
Student Natalie Boley said there are five topics of study: aquatic ecology, forestry, soils and land use, wildlife and a changing current issue.
“We all study those topics and we test throughout them. At our regionals, we test with a hands-on and written portion. And if we make that and go to state, then we do another written portion of the test, a hands-on section on its own and lastly, we do an oral presentation,” Boley said.
Student Griffin Roe said the regional competition was in February in Columbia City. The test had about 120 multiple-choice questions on each topic. The top two teams go to state. Roe said WCHS had three teams go to regionals and they placed in the top three.
“So then we combined our second- and third-place teams and we took both two teams to our state,” he said.
The state competition was held in Indianapolis. Part of the state competition was a presentation the students prepared a month in advance with lots of references and expert insight.
The “hybrid” team, who won second and third place at regionals, won seventh place at state and “we actually got fourth place for our oral presentation.” The other team got first place at state and will go to the international competition in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, in the summer, Roe said.
Gough said one team from Indiana going to the international competition has been from WCHS for the past three years in a row. A lot of schools representing their state in the international competition are from private schools, boarding schools and environmental-focused charter schools.
Student Jocelyn Baldridge said Envirothon has been important to her to help building confidence and building leadership skills.
Student Titiksha Gorhe said her favorite part of Envirothon is meeting new people. She went to the international competition in New York last year. She got to talk to U.S. and international students and got to hear about their experiences.
Student Sydney Clark said the hardest thing for her as team captain was making sure her team was organized and all on the same page because that was a key part of the competition.
Gorhe said the hardest part for her was in the oral presentation, making sure everyone on the team spoke equally during the presentation. Also, after the presentation, the team was asked questions and “everyone has to answer equally.” So getting everyone together to practice the presentation and making it go smoothly was difficult without going over time.
Board Vice President Tom Westerhof asked if they saw WCHS having a team going to the international competition three years in a row coming.
Gough said the year before they started their three-year run, they came second at the state competition and the momentum keeps coming. She said it’s not really surprising because she has watched the group learn a lot every year and pass that knowledge on to the next year’s group.
Also during the meeting, the board learned Warsaw Community Schools would like to offer an employee referral bonus to any employee that refers a Dual Language Immersion teacher who ends up getting hired, said Human Resource Director Steven Boyer. WCS is currently looking for two DLI teachers. The bonus is $500 for any teacher who requires work authorization or $1,000 for someone who is already properly licensed and certified.
The school corporation is also looking for bus drivers so Boyer said he believes those positions would be part of the employee referral bonus as well. More information will be brought to the board Monday.