Stony Brook Hosts 4th Annual Bay Scallop Bowl
Marine Sciences Research Center Hosts February 26 Event
STONY BROOK, N. Y. February 8, 2005 � When a 10-year-old British schoolgirl�s knowledge of oceanography helped her save 100 people from an approaching tsunami in Phuket, Thailand, it becomes clear that science education can literally make the difference between life and death. Her heroic effort will likely be on the minds of hundreds of high school students from 17 high schools across the region as they compete in the 4th Annual Bay Scallop Bowl on Saturday, February 26 at the Student Activities Center at Stony Brook University. The event�s opening remarks will be made at 8:30 AM by Stony Brook University Provost Robert McGrath and Marine Sciences Research Center (MSRC) Dean and Director David Conover. The competition runs all day and the winning team announced after the late afternoon rounds.
David Conover said �The Bay Scallop Bowl is an extremely important event because it increases the awareness among high school students about the plight of our coastal environment. We need to attract the brightest young minds to a career in oceanography to help us find solutions to the decline in health of our marine environment.�
�Getting young people interested in coastal science is essential to fulfilling the goals that have been identified by the Commission on Ocean Policy,� adds Jack Mattice, Director of New York Sea Grant, one of the Bowl�s cosponsors. �It is their generation that will decide how to recover, develop, maintain or conserve sustainable ocean resources for the future.�
This year�s lineup is dominated by suburban schools from Nassau, Suffolk and Rockland Counties, and includes Mt. Sinai High School which captured the Bay Scallop Bowl title in both 2002 and 2003, but lost to the Bronx High School of Science in 2004. That powerhouse team will compete as will three other New York City schools. Returning too, is Churchville-Chili High School from upstate Monroe County, bringing its two teams on the seven-hour trip for the fourth year in a row.
The winning Bay Scallop Bowl team will go on to the 7th Annual National Ocean Sciences Bowl in Biloxi, Mississippi in April, with all expenses paid, competing against 24 other regional champions from around the country. The NOSB� is sponsored by the Consortium for Oceanographic Research & Education in Washington, D.C.
The all-day competition includes Q&A �buzzer� rounds, a team challenge question, and social activities so the students get to know one another. Volunteers attend to all the details that help make the event happen and act as moderators and judges. This year�s pool of volunteers are drawn from University faculty, students and staff (especially from MSRC), New York Sea Grant, NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, Battelle Corporation, The Riverhead Foundation, Town of Brookhaven, NY-NJ Harbor Estuary Program, and Southampton College. More information about the national event is available at www.nosb.org.
The National Ocean Sciences Bowl is sponsored by the Consortium for Oceanographic Research & Education or CORE that represents 74 oceanographic institutions, universities and aquaria, and is funded by the National Oceanographic Partnership Program (NOPP), a collaboration of 15 federal agencies including NOAA Sea Grant. In addition, the Bay Scallop Bowl is sponsored by the Marine Sciences Research Center at Stony Brook University, The Alfred and Jane Ross Foundation, and New York Sea Grant.
For More Info contact: BARBARA BRANCA, NEW YORK SEA GRANT
631.632.6956 Barbara.Branca@stonybrook.edu – See more at: http://commcgi.cc.stonybrook.edu/am2/publish/General_University_News_2/Stony_Brook_Hosts_4th_Annual_Bay_Scallop_Bowl_830.shtml#sthash.KBY9YWoA.dpuf