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By Jessica Cheung
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May. 22, 2009 |
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A science team
consisting of five seniors from the school took third place at an
annual environmental competition held on April 29-31.
Science
teachers James Carmack and Kathy Melvin supervised and counseled the
Serpentines, a team composed of Advanced Placement Environmental
Science students Jason Lo, staff reporter Karyn Smoot, physics students
Ravi Patel, Jasper Wu and Advanced Placement Biology student Alice
Zhou. The team competed with 15 other schools across the state.
Although
the competition, sponsored by Canon Envirothon, has occurred annually
for the past 17 years, this is the first year the school has
participated. “Since it was our first-time competition, we had no idea
what it would look like,” Melvin said. “Our only sources came mainly
from online, which consisted of extensive information.”
The Serpentines went
head-to-head with students who had the advantage of takin classes
specializing in preparation for the contest. “A lot of the schools
within the competition had periods or classes designated for Envirothon
training,” Melvin said.
The competition has a different theme every
year. This year’s theme was “Biodiversity in a Changing World,” with
five biology disciplines — wildlife, aquatics, forestry, soils and
current issues. During the competition, each team was given
approximately 35-45 minutes to complete an eight-page packet of
fill-in-the-blanks and short answers.
According to Melvin, this
required teams to retrieve information from their
surroundings, such as
river oxygen levels, tree height and identifying animal skulls.
In
addition to the packets, the teams also gave an oral presentation on a
given hypothetical conflict: to mitigate any issues or conflicts
between environmentalists and developers with aims to urbanize an area.
The
team experienced several setbacks before the competition even started.
“Getting the school district to agree to overnight trips was tough,”
Melvin said.
The Serpentines also faced tough competition, such
as the reigning competitors Arlington High School, according to Lo. “We
didn’t know what to expect,” he said. “We just had to take it all into
stride and hope for the best.”
Although Arlington was announced the
winner of 2009 California Envirothon, the fact that the Serpentines
placed third was a significant accomplishment because it was their
first effort. “I thought the experience was very insightful and fun,”
Wu said. “It was an excellent opportunity to apply what I learned in AP
Environmental Science.”
The teacher supervisors were satisfied with the team’s work. “I’m extremely proud of the students,” Melvin said.
“They had no idea what they were getting themselves into. They did a great job.”
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