Corn Pops, Cornfields, and Corny Jokes

“Can you pass the Corn Pops?” said Kye Liew ’18 on a cloudy May afternoon, an abundance of field guides and wildlife magazines splayed across the sofa next to him. Misha Fan ‘18, Sam Crocker ‘19, and Zo Williams ’19 all looked up from their respective study materials.

It was the first of one of the Envirothon club’s many meetings in the week leading up to Thursday, May 18th—the day of the Envirothon competition. Taking place at Drumlin Farms in Lincoln, Massachusetts, the environmental science competition would test the team’s skills in 4 subject areas, or “EcoStations”: Soils, Water, Wildlife, and Forestry. The sub-team consisting of Liew and Williams would go on to place 2nd overall in the Soils section of the competition, but the team didn’t know that yet—rather, the fifth component of the competition, the current issue project, was what worried the team the most.

The problem was this: while each of EcoStations consists every year of a written test that covers both specific and general knowledge of its particular topic, the Current Issue topic changes from year to year and is designed for students to engage with their own community—and the team had not begun work on their presentation until May.

“How can we best protect, conserve, and steward the soil and water resources that are the ecological foundation of the local economies of the future?” asked the 2017 Current Issue guidelines provided on the Envirothon website. “How can we ensure that we are using land and water resources well, and keeping these essential resources healthy?”

With the joint help of Envirothon alumna and coach Ms. Alice Grimm and AP Environmental Science teacher Mr. Toby Emerson, the team visited two nearby farms to collect data and interview those who worked the land. Despite scheduling conflicts and rising panic, the team managed to talk to Chet Yazwinski, owner of the cornfields that envelope the Small Loop, and even get off campus in the last week to interview Peter Melnik, owner of Bar-Way farms.

The less time there was before the competition, the more frenzied the team became; all studying ceased in favor of completing the Current Issue presentation in time, and in the night leading up to the competition, it seemed that everything that could go wrong went wrong.

“Honestly there’s like only one section of legislation I can really talk about,” Crocker texted to the group-chat in frustration while the team realized that Liew’s OneCard was the only one that functioned for printing. Curfew bricked every team member into their respective dorm, and the disappearance of underclassman Wi-Fi at 11 o’clock severed communications at a critical time.

Miraculously, the project came together to win an average score of 80 out of 100 points from the judges. Moreover, Williams and Liew’s victory in the Soils section continued the streak begun by Margaret Muir ’19 who led the team to a 1st place in Soils in the 2016 Envirothon.

It is difficult to say what might remain constant as the team’s coaches, Current Issue topics, and members change. Yet it can only be hoped for that over time, Deerfield’s young soil experts might just become so familiar with their EcoStation as to simply say, “Sedimentary, my dear Watson.”