BANGOR — The State Envirothon was held on May 27 at Husson University. The Maine Association of Conservation Districts awarded plaques to the three top-scoring high school Envirothon teams at the event. The first-, second- and third-place winning teams respectively were: Jay High School, Mt. Ararat from Topsham and Boghaunter Home School from Gray-Casco. Fifteen teams representing 13 high schools from around Maine competed at the event.

First-place Jay High School will represent Maine at the international Canon Envirothon competition to be held in Fresno, Calif., in early August. Team members include: Isaac Couture, Jacob Roy, Sam Hutchinson, Kristy Macomber, Beth Moore and Lexi Deering. The team’s adult advisor is Robert Taylor, a teacher from Jay High School.

Envirothon is Maine’s largest high school environmental education program. It is an international program representing more than 500,000 high school students in the United States and Canada.

The major objective of the Maine Envirothon, an educational tool capable of supplementing environmental education both inside and outside the classroom, is to provide opportunities for high school students or organized groups of high school-aged students to acquire and increase their outdoor skills and scientific knowledge about Maine’s natural resources so that they can make informed, educated decisions about the environment.

It provides students with reference materials, workshops and hands-on, outdoor, real life experiences in five areas including forestry, wildlife, soils, aquatics and a current issue — this year being “Protection of Groundwater through Urban Agricultural and Environmental Planning.”

Other high schools competing in the State Envirothon finals included: Hodgdon, Washington Academy, Eastern Aroostook Alternative, Ellsworth, Lisbon, Piscataquis Community, Nokomis, Belfast, Central and Bucksport. Teams from Central Aroostook High School and Bonny Eagle High School were also eligible for the State Envirothon but were unable to attend. These teams represented the top four winning teams from four regional competitions held around the state earlier in May.

More information is available at www.envirothon.org or maineswcds.org.