About the Area IV Envirothon
What: In North Carolina, the Envirothon program is sponsored by the NC Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts and local county Soil and Water Conservaion Dstricts. Teams must first qualify at an area level competition to advance onto the NC Envirothon event. The Area IV region includes Durham, Edgecomb, Franklin, Granville, Halifax, Johnston, Nash, Vance, Wake, Warren and Wilson counties. Students from these 11 counties are invited each year to form five-member teams to compete in the spring Area IV Envirothon competition.
Who: The competition is open to public and private schools, homeschool groups, 4-H clubs, FFA teams, girl and boy scouts, science clubs or any other group interested in participating comprised of students from the same county. Middle school teams are composed of and compete with other students in grades 5-8. High school teams are composed of and compete with other students in grades 9-12. For more details please see the Competition Rules page.
How: Envirothon teams will begin studing in the fall, in prepartation for the spring Area IV event. An Envirothon study manual and/or study material is available for both high school and middle school teams in each of the 5 subject areas. The resource manuals and study materials can be downloaded from the NC Envirothon website here. Just look for the Resources tab and find the appropiate competition level for the team.
The Competition: Professionals from various natural resource agencies and/or environmental organizations write the five test for the subject areas. At the event, team members will rotate together through 5 stations and complete a 25-minute test per station. Each test has approximately 25 questions that can be answered by the team as a group. The test are then graded and scored on-site. The teams total cumulative score is calculated and ranked against the other teams. At the awards ceremony, the top 7 teams from both the middle school and high school division and the top high school FFA team will be announced. These top teams will advance on to compete at the state-level NC Envirothon competition.