RALEIGH — Hundreds of North Carolina’s brightest middle and high school students will be competing at the 2016 North Carolina Envirothon at Cedarock Park near Burlington on Friday and Saturday — including a team from East Bladen High.
The two-day event is designed to test the knowledge and skills of students that have a strong interest in natural resources conservation. The N.C. Envirothon is one of the largest events of its kind in the United States.
Student competitors have been preparing for the state Envirothon since the beginning of the school year and will compete for numerous awards and scholarships. During the past 26 years more than 20,000 students have participated in the N.C. Envirothon, which encourages youth to become involved in natural resources conservation and leadership activities.
Besides studying ecology and natural resources, students learn hands-on skills, such as wildlife identifications, forestry management techniques, soils classifications, stream ecology, and water quality sampling. Students often receive training from local, state and federal natural resource agencies, as well as private environmental organizations.
State awards will be given to top teams at the middle and high school levels and scholarships are awarded to the top place high school team(s). The high school winner of this year’s state Envirothon will represent North Carolina at the 2016 North America Envirothon, which will be held July 24-29 in Ontario, Canada. There, teams from across the United States and Canada are expected to compete for $100,000 in scholarships and prizes. 2016 sponsors include Smithfield Foods, Duke Energy, NC State University Department of Soil Science and more.