UTS Competes at the North American Envirothon In the (fictional) town of Cloverdale, Ontario, a difficult fiscal year has put urban tree maintenance at risk. As a member of the Urban Forest Advisory Committee, you are tasked with providing direction and recommendations to the municipality on how to handle the care and planting of trees and the urban forest, in both the older downtown area and newer outlying developments. That’s the gist of just one of the challenges faced by the UTS Envirothon team at the Ontario competition last year. And armed with paper, pens, and flip chart, the group was sequestered for several hours in order to devise a plan that they then presented to a team of experts. The mission of the North American Envirothon – an annual competition that takes place all over the USA and Canada – is to develop in young people an understanding of the principles of natural resource management and ecology, as well as provide practice in dealing with complex resourcemanagement decisions. During the competition, which begins at a regional level and escalates to an international event, teams of five students compete in written and practical tests of environmental knowledge and skills. All have general ecology knowledge, but each team member also specializes in one of five areas: wildlife, aquatics, forestry, and soils, plus a “special” topic each year. In 2015, the special topic was urban forestry. UTS teams have participated in the Envirothon for over 14 years, and have earned the Ontario championship title in four of the last six years. Students start training as early October of their F2 (grade 8) year, although joining in M4 (grade 10) is more common. Weekly meetings, in which experienced students serve as leaders to new participants, have students learning new content and practical skills (soil analysis, bird identification, forestry measurements and management decisions) that go
Photo by Theresa Dunlap, Envirothon Missouri Host Group
Top: Members of the UTS Envirothon team at the international competition in Missouri, July 2015. L-R: Fariba Ishrar, UTS teachers Elizabeth Straszynski and Daniel Genesee, Olivia Anderson-Clarke, Christina Brinza, Daniele Privé, and Kuhan Jeyapragasan. Bottom: Prepping at UTS. L-R: Chris Wai of Forests Ontario, Daniele, Fariba, Elizabeth Straszynski, Christina, and Kuhan.
far beyond the regular curriculum. In the Toronto East regional competition this spring (2015), the UTS A and B teams won first and second places respectively. This qualified Team A for provincials in Lindsay and, from there, the international competition. The Envirothon is generously supported by regional hosts and partners – locally, this is Forests Ontario – who take turns hosting the international event. In July 2015, with financial assistance from UTSPA, UTSAA, Forests Ontario, and individual donors, the UTS team – accompanied by UTS science teachers Elizabeth Straszynski
and Daniel Genesee – traveled to steamy Springfield, Missouri to pit their ecological wits against 53 other teams in the international final. Identifying species and interpreting habitats and issues in Missouri – a very different ecosystem from Ontario – proved particularly challenging. Nevertheless, and despite a relatively young team, UTS finished as the top-performing Canadian team and 14th overall. This success and the learning experiences gained – not to mention the home field advantage – augur well for the future: next year’s international final will be hosted by Trent University in Peterborough, ON. n THE UTS ALUMNI M AGAZINE
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