Raleigh team takes top honor in Envirothon competition

Enloe High School's Sub Chronic Exposure team took home top honors in the 22nd annual N.C. State Envirothon Competition. Sub Chronic Exposure claimed victory with a score of 519.3 points.

The middle school Envirothon winner was Wilson County's 4-H Envirothon Club "Organic Waste" team. The event, which drew more than 500 middle and high school students, took place at Cedarock Park in Alamance County.

"The Envirothon is a hands-on, natural science-based curriculum on soil and land use, aquatic ecology, wildlife, forestry and environmental issues," said Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. "Each spring a competition is held to see which team of students learned the most about these resource areas."

The competition tests teams of five students on their environmental knowledge using field and written examinations in forestry, soils and land use, aquatic ecology, wildlife and current environmental issues. High school teams are also given 65 minutes to develop a plan on a natural resource problem and then present their possible solution to that problem in a 10-minute oral presentation using the knowledge they learned from the curriculum.

The competition, held in the U.S. and Canada, is coordinated in North Carolina through the N.C. Division of Soil and Water Conservation, the state's 96 local soil and water conservation districts and the N.C. Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts.

The team from Enloe High School took home $200 and a plaque and each member received a $500 college scholarship. They will represent the state at the Canon Envirothon in Pennsylvania later this summer, where more than $107,000 in scholarships will be awarded. The winning middle school team received $125 and a plaque.