Hiker to end 6,800 mile journey at Cape Henlopen State Park in support of Envirothon

The Delaware Envirothon Planning Committee invites the public to an event welcoming Josh Seehorn, vice chair of the Georgia Envirothon, as he finishes his 6,800 mile hike across the American Discovery Trail - a journey he began last March to raise support and awareness for the North American Envirothon.

The celebration will be held Saturday, March 15, at 3 p.m., at the Atlantic Ocean trailhead of the American Discovery Trail at Cape Henlopen State Park in Lewes. Delaware envirothon educators, students and the public will meet and welcome Seehorn at the picnic pavilion, located just past the Seaside Nature Center at the end of Cape Henlopen Drive.

The North American Envirothon is the largest environmental education competition for high school students in North America. The program attracts more than 500,000 students nationwide and in Canada. The Delaware Envirothon, a chapter of the North American Envirothon, is sponsored by the Delaware Association of Conservation Districts. Each spring the Delaware chapter holds a competition for teams of high school students in the areas of aquatic ecology, soil and land use, wildlife, forestry, air quality, and an annual special environmental topic, with the state’s winning team representing Delaware in the national competition.

Seehorn began his journey in California in March 2013 at Point Reyes National Seashore and has hiked and run the American Discovery Trail, a merger of trails in cities, small towns, forests, deserts, and mountains. Along the way, he has camped out in his surroundings and also relied on the generosity of friends and strangers to feed and house him during his journey to Delaware. Last August, Seehorn took a detour from his route to attend the North American Envirothon competition in Bozeman, Montana where the Delaware team from the Charter School of Wilmington posed for a picture with Josh.

The 19th annual Delaware Envirothon competition will be held Thursday, April 10, at Coverdale Farm Preserve in Greenville. The site was selected to reflect the special conservation topic of “Sustainable Agriculture/Locally Grown.”

Registered schools for the competition are: A. I. DuPont High School, Charter School of Wilmington, Hodgson Vo-Tech High School, Middletown High School, St. Elizabeth High School, Caesar Rodney High School, Polytech High School, St. Thomas More Academy and Sussex Tech High School - 17 teams of five students.

The Delaware and North American Envirothon programs are run solely on donations solicited each year. Support is vital to the success of providing “challenging environmental education” to high school students in Delaware and across the United States and Canada. For more information go to  www.delawareenvmicirothon.org, www.envirothon.org, and www.outdoorjosh.com.

The North American Envirothon is currently undergoing a re-structuring under the leadership of the National Conservation Foundation based in Washington, D.C. and under the auspices of the National Association of Conservation Districts and other conservation partners. The 2015 North American Envirothon competition is being hosted by Missouri with a focus on urban forestry.

For more information, contact Rick Mickowski, Delaware Envirothon chairperson at 302-832-3100, Ext. 113. For information about Cape Henlopen State Park, go to www.destateparks.com. To learn about the American Discovery Trail, go to www.discoverytrail.org.