Paul Kane’s eco-nauts are set to take on the world after winning the top prize at the 2016 Alberta Envirothon.
Paul Kane students Nicholas Silver, Andrea Shipka, Cole Beattie, and Logan Heemeryck returned triumphant from Hinton last week after besting 12 other teams from across western Canada to win the 2016 Alberta Envirothon.
This is the first time the school has won provincials, said coach RenĂ©e LeClerc – they’ve taken second and third place in previous years.
The Alberta Envirothon is an annual high school competition that promotes environmental awareness and careers in science. The three-day event (held this year from May 26 to 29 at the Hinton Training Centre) challenges students to use teamwork and problem-solving skills to complete tasks related to environmental science.
Many of this year’s challenges dealt with invasive species, such as finding invasive zebra and quagga mussels hidden on a boat.
“These muscles are no bigger than two centimetres, so they’re really tiny,” Shipka said, making them very tough to spot.
The Alberta Invasive Species Council says zebra and quagga muscles cause massive ecological and economic problems when introduced to lakes, crowding out other species, creating toxic algal blooms, clogging water treatment plants, and shredding people’s feet. Beattie noted that Ontario is spending about $75 million a year just to manage these invaders.
One of the team’s tasks at the Envirothon was to research and explain to tourists the province’s “clean, drain, and dry” program, which aims to stop these mussels at the border. Under it, boaters have to thoroughly clean and dry their boats before they leave any water body and return to Alberta, and have their crafts inspected at the border for mussels.
“They have really nice dogs that they’ve trained specifically to sniff out mussels,” Shipka said, and they work really fast.
Teams also had to identify aquatic bugs, trees, soil samples, and pine cones.
The biggest challenge, and the one the team suspects put them over the top for points, was to prepare and present a comprehensive plan to eliminate the invasive flowering rush from the fictional city of Hope, Alta.
The flowering rush is a prohibited noxious weed that grows in wet areas and sprouts an umbrella of pink or white flowers, Silver said. It’s currently spreading throughout the Sturgeon River valley.
“The big issue with it is that it reproduces voraciously through its rhizomes,” he said – if you shred it or leave even a tiny bit of it behind, you spread it.
The team was locked in a room and had six hours to do this task without the help of outside experts or the Internet. Teamwork was critical.
“You can’t get stressed, you can’t get heated. You’ve got to accept everybody’s ideas,” Beattie said.
“I’m really happy I got stuck with these people because I would have killed anybody else!” said Shipka, laughing.
For winning, the team received a large trophy made from a chunk of pine-beetle-killed wood, several wooden flying saucers (a reference to the invasive species theme), and $1,000.
LeClerc said the team has decided to try their luck at the North American Envirothon in Peterborough, Ont., this July 24 to 29, where they’ll be up against some 3,000 other students from across Canada, the U.S., and China.
“The competition is stiff.”
The students said they wholly expect to get crushed at the event and plan to treat it as a trial run for next year.
The students said the Envirothon was a fun way to get some hands-on scientific experience and meet new people. They also got to network with industry experts and build important job skills.
Shipka said she also now knows way too much about forestry.
“I’m not a science girl, but I guess I’m good at science!”
