BANGOR – Sixteen teams from 14 high schools from all over Maine participated in the 2010 Maine State Envirothon competition at Husson University on Thursday, but it was the six students from Jay High School who took top honors.

The day’s competition was planned and coordinated by a team of partners from the state’s Soil and Water Conservation Districts. The top team at Jay High School are: 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.

Winning the state event qualifies the Jay team for an opportunity to participate at the international Envirothon Competition to be held on Aug. 1 - 6 in Fresno, California. Top corporate sponsors of the event were Plum Creek and Poland Spring Water Company. Chris Mckenna, Poland Spring’s truck fleet manager, presented a $500 travel scholarship to the Jay High School team to help with expenses should the team be able to make the trip.

Envirothon, the largest high school environmental education program in North America, is a natural resource problem-solving competition for students in grades 9 through 12. In an outdoor setting, student teams were tested in five natural resource areas: aquatics, forestry, soils, wildlife, and a current national environmental issue.

This year’s national environmental issue was protecting groundwater through urban, agricultural, and environmental planning.