|
|
New York State Envirothon |
|||||||||||||||||||
|
|
CANDOR — The Candor 400s Envirothon team is building a dynasty, winning four consecutive state championships and seven overall. Envirothon is an academic hands-on environmental competition. The teams compete in five subject areas: soils, forestry, wildlife, aquatics and the current issue. This year's issue is “recreational impacts on natural resources.” The five-member team, comprised of Cole Tucker, Stephen Trinidad, Josh Huizinga, Emily Nedrow and Toby Heavenrich, succeeds with a combination of dedication, intelligence and long hours of studying. “These are motivated students,” said Jonathan Zisk, who has coached the team every year except two since 1995. “We have a group here that are all very high-functioning students.” Half of Zisk's stockroom for physics and chemistry is taken up by Envirothon study sources, shelves of notebooks that the team has compiled and written over the years, and scientific equipment they practice using for the hands-on parts of the competition. The students all had their own reasons for joining Envirothon, from older siblings' involvement to previous interest in the outdoors to improving résumés. “I joined because I'm always looking for anything I can do to make my college applications better,” said Nedrow, a sophomore. “I'm so busy that I'll have to drop something eventually, but this won't be it. It's just so much fun.” Dedication is a big part of success, the team said. “We don't have a class for this, it's an afterschool activity” said Heavenrich, a senior who has been on the team all four winning years. “That makes the kids who come the ones who actually want to put the time in.” Strategy is another key to success, the students said. Many other teams assign one of the five categories to each student, the team said. But the students on the Candor team learn a little of everything, even if they do specialize on one area. “A lot of teams, you see them walking around and one person's wearing the ‘soils' jacket and one person's wearing the ‘forestry' jacket,” Nedrow said. “Those are usually the teams at the bottom.” One of the team's biggest obstacles was balancing Envirothon with other activities, the group said. “We all have so many other things we do, it's not like anybody just does Envirothon,” Heavenrich said. “We all do schoolwork, we have sports we do. I do martial arts year round and soccer for the school.” The group meets once a week at the beginning of the school year, but as the year goes on the group meets up to five times a week and sometimes weekends, Zisk said. And though the focus of the competition is on the environment, the students learn other skills such as public speaking and time management, he added. “Even if you don't go into an environmental field, you can always put environmental aspects into everything,” Heavenrich said. “I'm going into aerospace engineering, but there's a lot of alternative fuels and stuff like that you can bring into it.” Some teammates will use their knowledge in a more direct way. “I was always convinced I was going to be a vet, and then I was thinking more about being a doctor,” Nedrow said. “Then Zisk said, when you have a skill that could help the world, that's what you should go with. So now I'm considering environmental stuff, too.” The team celebrates its victories with ice cream, movies, or “jamming” in the van after competitions. With all the hard work and long hours put into the Envirothon, the team members get “too close,” they said. Together they compiled a secret quote book that even Zisk isn't allowed to see. Because they took first place in the state competition, the Candor 400s will be traveling to Flagstaff, Ariz. from July 28-Aug. 3 to compete in the Canon Envirothon, which hosts teams from across the nation and Canada. They placed seventh in last year's international competition. |
