To get ready for competition, Envirothon Club is the first club in Texas that meets every day during fifth period in sponsor David Henderson’s class.

“I feel that we have a greater advantage being in a class,” Buller said. “The other Envirothon clubs around Texas actually have meetings every so often to study the material. We have a class the whole year.”  

Last year, Envirothon met after school whenever members could. This year, Envirothon splits their class period time between learning in the classroom and going outside.

“My favorite part of the class is going outside,” senior Seth Buller said. “It’s the hands on experience that makes the class more interesting. We get to learn a lot more and have a deeper understanding of nature.”

Environthon competitions consists of two different parts: field and oral. Field competition consists of teams of five people, each person in charge of a certain genre: aquatics, forestry, soils, wildlife or the environmental issue of the year.  Each team then walks through a field or range while stopping at stations to answer questions.

“Last year, I was the wildlife specialist,” senior Cassidy Nordeen said. “An example [of a question] would be that the judges would give me an animal skull. I would then have to identify the skull, tell them what it ate and how it fit into an ecosystem.”

After being in the field competition for most of the day, Envirothon then goes back to the classroom for the oral part of the competition. Oral competition consists of teams being in a room for four hours and given an environmental problem to solve. The judges assess on the facts given, ability to answer questions and how long the presentation is.

“You have to make sure to like your team,” Nordeen said. “Knowing your team is so vital to achieving [success at] the competition because everything there is designed to make people work together. Now every day we get to see others strengths and weaknesses.”

Envirothon club meets in aquatic science room 427. The class prepares for the competition with five different focuses: forestry, wildlife, aquatic science, soils and the environmental issue of the year.

“I feel like we’re going to have a very strong team this year,” Henderson said. “They are soaked into the material. I do have one returning student who is very strong.”