Kountz or Bust!
So...crazy weekend. Woke up at like 4:30 on Sunday, drove about 2 hours to Kountz, Texas, home of Big Thicket National Park for Envirothon.
We got fourth, but I wasn't too disappointed, cause the overall experience was actually a lot of fun. On Sunday morning, we had "training" in which we listened to a bunch of park rangers and experts on various topics discuss what we were going to be studying later that day. The soils expert guy reminded me of Mr. Van Alstyne. I think it was the comb-over and the fact that I fell asleep in his lecture. Then I slammed my right index finger in the trash can after lunch, and it's still purple. Doesn't hurt much anymore though. The competition itself was aiight, we spent about 3 hours on the Kirby trail looking at random stuff, but many of the questions we could have answered indoors.
Then they gave us 3 hours after dinner to come up with a plan on how we can "revitalize the Big Thicket", such as attracting more visitors and conserving more of the ecological diversity. That was a lot of work for just three hours, but I was glad that my group weren't snapping and ready to kill each other by the end of it, unlike some of the other groups I talked to. There were five of us in one room, so it was a little crowded, but it was just for one night, so it was really no big deal. We then presented our proposed solution to three of the judges this morning.
The John Cooper teams got first and second, so that kinda sucked, but oh well, there's always next year, right?
I had fun and both of our teams were invited to present our solutions to a Woodlands based environmental company...at least that's what I think they are.
By the way, everyone HAS to hear Amy W.'s velociraptor impression. It is freaking hilarious!
We got fourth, but I wasn't too disappointed, cause the overall experience was actually a lot of fun. On Sunday morning, we had "training" in which we listened to a bunch of park rangers and experts on various topics discuss what we were going to be studying later that day. The soils expert guy reminded me of Mr. Van Alstyne. I think it was the comb-over and the fact that I fell asleep in his lecture. Then I slammed my right index finger in the trash can after lunch, and it's still purple. Doesn't hurt much anymore though. The competition itself was aiight, we spent about 3 hours on the Kirby trail looking at random stuff, but many of the questions we could have answered indoors.
Then they gave us 3 hours after dinner to come up with a plan on how we can "revitalize the Big Thicket", such as attracting more visitors and conserving more of the ecological diversity. That was a lot of work for just three hours, but I was glad that my group weren't snapping and ready to kill each other by the end of it, unlike some of the other groups I talked to. There were five of us in one room, so it was a little crowded, but it was just for one night, so it was really no big deal. We then presented our proposed solution to three of the judges this morning.
The John Cooper teams got first and second, so that kinda sucked, but oh well, there's always next year, right?
I had fun and both of our teams were invited to present our solutions to a Woodlands based environmental company...at least that's what I think they are.
By the way, everyone HAS to hear Amy W.'s velociraptor impression. It is freaking hilarious!