Southwestern College

Southwestern College in Winfield was the host for the 2010 Kansas Envirothon on Wednesday, May 12.

Holton High School was tops among 14 schools represented.

The Kansas Envirothon is an outdoor, environmental high school competition where students learn and are tested on soils, forestry, wildlife, aquatics and a current issue. Each school is allowed to send one team of five high school students to the state competition. Holton High School will represent Kansas at the Canon Envirothon in Fresno, Calif. The current issue for the 2010 Kansas competition is "Protection of groundwater through urban, agricultural and environmental planning."

“One of the reasons that Southwestern College offered to host the Kansas State Envirothon competition was to demonstrate that environmental responsibility is one of our institutional priorities,” says Jason Speegle, Green Team director at Southwestern College. “The Envirothon has a long tradition of environmental based scholastics. Southwestern has great facilities and great students, faculty, and staff. The ability to bring all of those elements together makes for a great event.”

Southwestern faculty members Rick Cowlishaw, Charlie Hunter, and Pat Ross participated in the event by being presenters. Cowlishaw and Hunter discussed current issues with the students while Ross discussed aquatics.

“The Kansas Envirothon was great this year,” Speegle says. “It was somewhat easier for us to plan the logistics since this was our second year to host the event. We were also able to interact with the Cowley County Conservation District in the planning and bring in more quality presenters from the area than we did last year.”