At the annual Manasota Regional Envirothon held in late January, 131 students on 26 teams representing seven Manatee and Sarasota County high schools competed at Oscar Scherer State Park in Osprey. The Envirothon is an outdoor environmental team competition for high school students, testing their knowledge of aquatics, forestry, soils, wildlife, and this year’s current topic ‘Roots and Resiliency: Fostering Forest Stewardship in a Canopy of Change’. Manatee River Soil and Water Conservation District along with Sarasota Soil and Water Conservation District co-host the annual competition.
Results
Placing first for Manatee County was ‘The Bodacious Bear’ team from Manatee High School, coached by Boontarika Elswick. ‘Squirrely Girlies’ team, also from Manatee High School and coached by Boontarika Elswick placed second. Team ‘Serendipitous Seminoles’ from Southeast High School coached by Robin Routh placed third.
MANATEE County: 1st Place Team: ‘The Bodacious Bear’ team from Manatee High School – L to R- Students Rosetta Vang, Olive Palmer-Boyes, Shalalai Elswick, Guering Lara, and Henry Leatham.
Representing Sarasota County, Suncoast Polytechnical High School, ‘Deadly Dandelion Team’ placed first. Nina Henderson was the teacher/advisor for Suncoast Polytechnical High School teams. In second place was ‘Leaf of Legends’ from Sarasota High School, coached by Andy Harshman and John Stevenson. Booker High School’s ‘The Forces of Forestry’ coached by Ryan McGoldrick and Molly Dent placed third.
SARASOTA County: 1st Place Team: ‘Deadly Dandelion Team’ from Suncoast Polytechnical High School- L to R-students Erick Chen, Diego Alonso, Ekaterina Kelenina, Nathan Vanston, and Damari Barney.
Other high schools competing were Palmetto and Venice. At the contest, alternate team members form impromptu teams. These impromptu teams can have members from different high schools. Alternate teams are not qualified to place in the contest. One alternate team named ‘Extras’ had the second highest score overall in the contest.
Sponsors and Volunteers
Lunch was sponsored by the Manatee Fish and Game Association. Sarasota County Farm Bureau, the Green Jean Foundation, and the Mosaic Company sponsored the event t-shirts. Keep Manatee Beautiful and Keep Sarasota County Beautiful sponsored the awards. Sarasota and Manatee River Soil and Water Conservation District board member representatives Chuck Johnston, Matt Palmer, Linda Carroll, and Julie Tillett attended. Hunter Jensen, Program Manager, Keep Sarasota County Beautiful attended to congratulate the students and share some upcoming volunteer opportunities. The support of the sponsors and cooperating agencies is greatly appreciated.
Representatives from Big Waters Land Trust and the Green Jean Foundation were also on hand to speak with students about their organizations and provide information for teachers to share with their students. Merrie Lynn Parker with Manatee Fish and Game shared some words with students on where they could locate some scholarship opportunities.
Manatee County Natural Resources Department, UF/IFAS Manatee County Extension, Florida Forest Service, USDA-Natural Resources Conservation Service, UF/IFAS Sarasota County Extension and Sustainability. Thanks to Sarasota County Cattlemen’s Association for the use of their tables and chairs. Thanks are due to Oscar Scherer State Park for making arrangements and allowing the contest to be held in the park.
Future contests
First place teams from each county are eligible to compete in the State Envirothon in April, at the McKethen Lake Recreation Area in Brooksville. https://www.flenvirothon.com/
Top teams from each state will compete in the North American Envirothon https://envirothon.org/ during the summer at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
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