On March 27, a group of five students from Linganore High School (LHS) attended the Maryland Envirothon Training, a briefing on the upcoming Envirothon competition that will be hosted later in the year.

Each student team from across the state of Maryland is composed of five students selected by their school’s sponsor for the team. Linganore’s sponsor is AP Environmental Science teacher Mark Sunkel.

This year’s training took place at Cunningham Falls State Park, and the goal was to brief student teams on the different categories for their competition in April.

The main categories are soil, forestry, aquatics and wildlife, with a fifth category changing every year. This year’s fifth category is renewable energy.

Each teammate will be assigned to one of the categories, and they are expected to become an expert in that field by the time that the competition happens.

Abby Etherton is a senior and one of the five students selected by Sunkel to attend the training and be a part of the team for Lignanore.

Etherton reported that she is very excited and happy to be chosen as an LHS representative for this event. As a prospective environmental science student, she noted that this competition is a great opportunity for students to extend their knowledge in this field.

“I just thought it was really cool to hear from a lot of the experts there that are running the Envirothon,” said Etherton. “I’m just really excited for the competition, and then I’m hoping that I’ll be able to apply this [knowledge] to my studies in college.”

Etherton’s knowledge specification for the team is in soil. She explained that this might seem boring for other people, but for her, this is wildly interesting and fun.

“I am interested in soil and plants, and also just generally really like gardening, so learning about soil has been fun for me,” Etherton said.

Lillian Hart is a senior and another one of the teammates selected by Sunkel to be on the LHS team.

She expressed that she is looking forward to being able to compete on behalf of Linganore in April.

“All [of] the staff were very nice and knowledgeable in their respective fields,” said Hart. “I am looking forward to the competition to see how our team does.”

The Linganore Envirothon team will compete on April 23. Follow @lhsjournalism on all platforms to receive updates on their results at their competition.