The Fergus Falls Envirothon students took five of the top six places at the Northwest regional competition in Detroit Lakes last week. Fergus Falls took 1st, 3rd,4th, 5th, and 6th. The top four teams advance to the State competition Monday, May 15th at the Prairie Wetlands Learning Center. First Place Team (Jaden Miller, Logan Bredenberg, Clayton Peppel, Josiah Uggerud, Tommy Erickson,), Third Place ( Olivia Swanson, Ella Roberts, Kendal Hanson, Libby Lindgren, Alexis Wellman) Fourth Place (Logan Hovland, Cooper Batzlaff, Braden Bucher, Carson Grenier, William Brandt).
The Envirothon is an outdoor environmental learning competition for high school students. Area competitions are administered by the state's Soil and Water Conservation Districts, in partnership with conservation organizations, educators, and other natural resource agencies.
The Envirothon encourages students to learn more about Minnesota's natural resources, as well as public policy and the roles of government and landowners in managing the state's resources. The program helps students develop critical thinking, cooperative problem-solving, and decision-making skills.
Schools and teachers benefit by providing learning opportunities to students who excel in the sciences and ecology. The community and state benefit by having concerned and well-informed citizens who can make good decisions about the environment.
Teams of students compete by visiting five learning stations and taking a 20-point exam on an environmental topic. The topics are:
- Aquatics
- Forestry
- Soils
- Wildlife, and
- Current events, which is a new topic each year.
The exams are administered by a local natural resource professional, who also gives the students a brief overview of the topic and explains some of the core concepts. Teams also prepare and give an oral presentation on the current events topic.
