Student teams from seven Westchester public high schools competed and demonstrated their knowledge of environmental science and natural resource management at the 19th annual Hudson Valley Regional Envirothon on April 30.
John Jay High School in the Katonah-Lewisboro School District placed third in the competitive field and now will go on to represent the county at the New York State Envirothon in Keuka Park in June.
Other high school teams competing from Westchester were from Ossining, Hastings, Yorktown, Greenburgh, Harrison, Lakeland Walter Panas and The Tech Center (BOCES) in Yorktown.
Twenty-eight high school teams, representing nine southern New York counties, participated in the regional competition held at the Sharpe Reservation in Fishkill. The other winners were regional teams from Hudson and Chatham High Schools in Columbia County, who placed first and second respectively.
Co-sponsored by the Westchester Department of Planning and the County Soil and the Water Conservation District, the competition challenges high school students to think critically about the natural world and their role in it.
The winning John Jay team was coached by teacher and advisor Linda Burke. Its team members, Lauren Allen, Hunter Camps, Derek Racine, Travis Winter and Alexandre Zarookian, are all environmental enthusiasts who participate in Westchester's Citizens' Volunteer Monitoring Program to test and collect data to monitor the water quality of county streams.
If the John Jay High School team wins the New York State Envirothon, a five-student team, culled from the ten students from the two John Jay teams, will have the opportunity to compete in the next phase of the
"The county Planning Department welcomes the opportunity to promote events like the Envirothon, which combines in-class curriculum and outdoor training to help students to learn about aquatic ecology, forestry, soil and land use, wildlife, and the current environmental issues facing our region," said Acting Planning Commissioner Edward Buroughs.