« Back to News

Our Experience at the 2009 Canon Envirothon Competition

Sep 1, 2009 by Stephens County High School

After the exhilaration of winning the Georgia Envirothon State Competition wore off, the reality of the job we had to do to prepare for the Canon competition set in. Beginning about two weeks after the state competition, we began to meet to go over the Canon materials to see what new things we had to learn. Our training was made more fun by our advisors Dr. Terry Seehorn and Mr. Nathan Shack because we met in some really great places. Some of our sessions were called pool sessions because we met at poolside (and in the pool!) and others were pontoon sessions for the same reason. We also met at a mountain cabin which included a whitewater rafting trip and went camping near the Cradle of Forestry so we could get some training there. We met at the Stephens County Soil and Water Conservation District’s straw bale constructed Willard Kimsey Environmental Education Center as well as took a trip to the state arboretum to study with “Mr. Dendrology” Bill Lott.

We left on the day before the competition (a Saturday) and stayed at a hotel in the Asheville area in order to do some last minute cramming. We registered on Sunday afternoon moved into our college dorm rooms, and participated in the opening ceremony that day. Following the ceremony we had a gigantic swap-meet where we met other students from all across North America and traded with them for things from their native area. Monday was training day. We went to training sessions for each of the five areas. In the evening we were allowed one last shot at studying for the station testing. Tuesday was the day where we completed station tests very much like those we had done during the Georgia competition. That evening we had a rain-affected social event and got a chance to meet and talk with other students in the competition.

Wednesday was the “fun day”. We left early for Cherokee and spent the day there seeing all the cultural history stuff at the Cherokee Museum and Oconaluftee Village as well as the Smoky Mountain visitor center. After some souvenir shopping we loaded up and headed to a fairgrounds in Waynesville where we enjoyed an awesome barbecue, one of the top blue grass bands in the country, saw a clogging demonstration and had a wild and crazy clogging festival ourselves. Rep. Heath Shuler, congressman from that area also spoke to us.

It was back to work on Thursday as we had teaching on the presentation topic in the morning and then were sequestered in a room for almost 10 hours while we put our presentation together. On Friday morning we presented before a 5 judge panel and had to wait to find out if we had made the top 5 teams. We didn’t. Those 5 teams re-presented before the group on Friday afternoon and were re-judged to determine the final standings. After the awards ceremony, there was a dance where we got to spend a few more hours with our newfound friends. We left Saturday morning to come back home with the team’s juniors vowing to make sure we made it back to the Canon event in 2010 (especially since it is in California)!

See the photos section of this web site for photos of Stephens County at the Canon Envirothon.

Team members:
Seth White, Alex Kiser, Courtney Hopkins, Justin Salzman, Brittany Wilkinson, Kristen Quick

Advisors:
Terry Seehorn and Nathan Shack

Latest News