Students Show Off Natural Resource Know-How at Weldon Spring Site

The Office of Legacy Management’s (LM) Weldon Spring Site Interpretive Center in St. Charles County, Missouri, was selected as the site of the 2024 St. Louis Regional Natural Resources Envirothon competition. On April 4, site employees supported the St. Charles County Soil and Water Conservation District, which organized the event. 

The Envirothon is an international program and competition that engages more than 25,000 high school students from the United States, Canada, and China. Students use science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) principles to gain hands-on learning experience in various outdoor fields and expand their knowledge of the environment and natural resource conservation. These students spend months learning and studying areas such as aquatic ecology, forestry, soils and land use, wildlife, and current environmental issues, all with the goal of qualifying for the National Conservation Foundation’s annual Envirothon competition.

“The Weldon Spring Site is honored to support the local community and host the regional competition,” said LM Site Manager Rebecca Roberts. “Envirothon’s mission aligns with STEM with LM goals to support STEM education and equip students with the knowledge and skills to prepare for STEM careers. It was exciting to be able to watch the students compete.”

Forty students from nearby high schools participated in this year’s competition, which featured both written and hands-on testing in five natural resource areas — aquatics, forestry, wildlife, soils, and the current issue. This year the current issue is renewable energy for a sustainable future.

Each team consisted of five students. Teams traveled from one resource station to the next, answering written questions and working with tools and natural resource props. For example, at the wildlife station students identified pelts, tracks, and skulls; at the soils station they analyzed soil samples and identified profile layers. Teams also gave presentations to a panel of judges (natural-resource or related professionals), providing a solution to a real-world problem related to the current issue. Each team received the same prompt related to renewable energy and then developed a seven-minute PowerPoint presentation.

The students were from Rockwood Summit High School, Lindbergh High School, Parkway North High School, Oakville High School, and Parkway Unified. The top three teams at this year’s event, in order of placement, were: Rockwood Summit with a score of 85.1%; Parkway North with a score of 78.2%; and Lindbergh Team 2 with a score of 76.7%.

These three teams will go on to compete May 1 in the Jefferson City area with other Missouri teams for the opportunity to represent Missouri at the international event, hosted this year by New York Envirothon in Geneva, New York, July 28-Aug. 3, 2024. 

For more information or to keep up to date with the Envirothon, head to Envirothon.org.