(by Claire Adams)

On Monday, November 4th, the McLane Center hosted the New Hampshire Envirothon Training Day. New Hampshire Envirothon is a state-wide, high school academic competition that tests students’ knowledge and competency about a variety of environmental subjects. The mission of the New Hampshire Envirothon is to provide students with the knowledge and tools to make responsible decisions to address the natural resource challenges facing today’s society as well as maintaining a balance between the quality of life and the quality of the environment.

In preparation for the test day in May, high school teams across NH are given the opportunity to get a sneak peak of test questions and materials during a training day in early November. This training day invites the competing teams and the testing subject “teams” (professionals from a variety of organizations and agencies that are experts in the fields of forestry, aquatics, wildlife, soils, and land use) to introduce their subjects and give the students time to practice, learn, and ask questions. Each year NH Envirothon is based around a central theme that focuses the questions of the above teams and is the rubric for the student’s current environmental issue presentation. The theme for 2025 is “Roots and Resiliency: Fostering Forest Stewardship in a Canopy of Change,” which centers around how climate change is impacting and will continue to impact our critical forest ecosystems in New Hampshire.

As a member of the wildlife team, Claire Adams, NH Audubon’s Camp Administrator and Environmental Educator, played a large role in facilitating training day logistics and ensuring the students would be well-prepared for understanding how climate change and forest stewardship can impact wildlife. Along with Lindsay Webb (NH Fish & Game), Ted Kendziora (US Fish & Wildlife Service), and Maria Colby (Wings of Dawn wildlife rehabilitator), she helped guide the students in deepening their understanding of wildlife population dynamics, habitat classification and quality, critical thinking about forest management impacts on wildlife, and animal identification.

This year’s training day was a success, with the students enthusiastically engaged in their station rotations and attentively taking notes and asking questions during the current environmental issue presentation. The students, teachers, and NH Envirothon Administrators were appreciative of the location and space of the McLane Center, and NH Audubon is proud to be a part of the important work of NH Envirothon.