On Tuesday, March 14, two teams from the Benet Academy Environmental Club participated in the Northern Illinois Envirothon Competition, part of the NCF-Envirothon. The NCF-Envirothon is the largest Envirothon competition in North America and is the official Envirothon competition for the United States, Canada, and China. Benet Academy has competed in this competition and even made it as far as the national competition. 

The competition consisted of four technical categories, forestry, aquatics, wildlife, and soils, along with one current events category. Each technical category consisted of a multiple choice test and a lab-based test. The current events category consisted of a seven minute oral presentation on a specified current issue. This year’s issue was “adapting to a changing climate.”

The Northeastern Envirothon competition comprised 19 teams, including two from Benet Academy. Experts from each technical field were present, along with environmentalists and members of local forest preservation groups. Science teacher Mrs. Volin led the Benet teams. The five-member teams studied resources given by the competition moderators earlier in the year and prepared a solution to present. 

Both teams scored highly in all categories and placed 3rd and 5th in the county. Sophomore Annie VanDeWalle, a member of Benet Team A, said, “Envirothon is such a unique and fun team to be a part of! It definitely isn’t something I would have envisioned myself doing at Benet, but it’s extremely rewarding and I’ve loved being a part of it the last two years! In my specialty, the “soils” category, we placed third overall, and the team placed third in the county, despite being the only team in the competition made up of underclassmen. Although we didn’t come out on top this year, it was such a cool experience to be a part of, and I have a really good feeling about next year!”