BECKLEY, WV (WOAY) – An educational conservation program in the Mountain State made its way to Raleigh County today (Thursday) to take a tour supporting their environmental initiative.
They are known as the West Virginia Envirothon Team and are made up of 9th to 12th-grade high school students around the state passionate about helping the environment. They paid a visit to the Raleigh County Solid Waste Authority to help get some inspiration.
The students compete in different competitions throughout the year centered around environmental topics. First place winners in the statewide competition, the Ravenswood High School’s FFA Team is about to represent the state nationally.
“My sister was always a part of this and I also just like the environmental studies, and so I just wanted to do the competition, and that’s how I got the other people to do it, I was basically the driving force behind this,” says an 11th grade member of the Ravenswood High School’s FFA Team, Isaac Lane.
The team focuses on five subject areas to research and compete on, which include aquatics, forestry, soils, wildlife, and a current environmental topic. This year the topic was Waste to Resources.
The Chair of the Envirothon Committee in the state, Wayne Mckeever says Thursday’s trip to the Recycling Center was a helpful experience for the students to learn more about the topic at hand and get a jump on the competition.
“Of course, this fits right into the waste for resources type thing here where they recycle. And they just do a tremendous job here, and I think it gave the students a lot to see today,” says Mckeever.
The students will use what they learned at the Recycling Center to create a 20-minute presentation for the National Envirothon competition in late July at Miami University in Oxford Ohio.
This year’s win at the state-level competition in April 2022 earned the team a $5,000 scholarship.
