Mar 18

Written by: ngreditor
3/18/2008 8:49 PM 

Newman Grove Students compete in Envirothon contest

By Larry Schultz, Info & Education Coordinator, Lower Loup

What percentage of Nebraska’s land is in agricultural use? What is the state insect of Nebraska? What wood structure moves water horizontally in the trunk of a tree? These were just a few of the questions that faced a team of Newman Grove students competing in the North Central Region Envirothon Contest held in conjunction with the District V and VI Agriculture Education Contests at Central Community College in Columbus on Tuesday, March 11.

In addition to Newman Grove, high school teams from Holdrege, Humphrey, Twin River, Schuyler Central, Boone Central, David City, Ord and Osceola took part in the Envirothon, sponsored by the Lower Loup Natural Resources District. Envirothon is a contest for high school students designed to test their knowledge in forestry, range, soils, wildlife, aquatics, and natural resources policy. Students must also tackle a current environmental issue. This year that issue was the impact of outdoor recreation on nature.

Teams compete in each category of the contest and for the top overall score. This year’s overall winner was a team from Ord. The Newman Grove team of Jessica Boschen, Jake Kaufman, Jordan Nelson, and Blake Carter tied for second place in the soils division of the contest.

Regional Envirothons like the one last week are held around the state and teams that score highest in those contests are invited to the Nebraska State Envirothon to be held May 3rd at the State 4-H Camp at Halsey. The winner of that contest will go on to represent Nebraska at the national contest, sponsored by Canon, to be held at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, July 28-August 3.

For those wondering about the answers to the questions above, the answers were: about 93%, the honey bee, and wood rays.