MMI Preparatory School captured the top three places in the virtual Luzerne County Envirothon competition this spring.

MMI’s first-place team of Darren Zheng (captain), Louis DeAngelo, Hunter Blasko, Dominique Kline, and Violet O’Connell will advance to the state competition.

The team of Rachael Betz (captain), Keiran Mele, Olivia Bartholomew, Connor Spencer, and Sandra Abdulrahman placed second. The team of Kathryn Sissick (captain), Nathan Sissick, Nathaniel Neidlinger, Blake Warren, and Diane Arias-Tejeda finished third. MMI had a total of 10 teams compete in this year’s event.

The Pennsylvania Envirothon is one of the state’s largest natural resource education competitions. It provides thousands of students with the knowledge and tools necessary to address the natural resource challenges facing today’s world.

During the competition, five-member teams participate in a series of field station tests that focus on five topic areas - soils and land use, aquatic ecology, forestry, wildlife, and environmental issues. Additionally, the teams complete an oral presentation that provides them with the experience of developing a presentation from start to finish that is based on a written scenario. The testing station and oral presentation scores are combined to determine the winning team.

The first Envirothon competition was held in 1979 by the Fulton, Luzerne and Schuylkill conservation districts and by 1984, the program expanded to a statewide competition and then nationally and internationally. Now, more than 15,000 high school students across the state compete in 67 county Envirothons.

Local students include: Darren Zheng, son of Hongzhi and De Zheng of Jim Thorpe; Violet O’Connell, daughter of Michael and Genevieve O’Connell of Coaldale; Rachael Betz, daughter of Amy Houm of Tamaqua and Richard Betz of Honesdale; Keiran Mele, son of Michael and Laurie Mele of Jim Thorpe; Olivia Bartholomew, daughter of Dean Bartholomew and Cheryl Serafin-Bartholomew of Jim Thorpe; Nathaniel Neidlinger, son of Amanda Neidlinger of Weatherly.