Stony Brook University and MSRC will host the 10th Annual National Ocean Sciences Bowl (NOSB) this weekend, April 28-30th. The NOSB is the culmination of the 25 regional competitior’s, including MSRC’s annual Bay Scallop Bowl, which took place around the country in February. The NOSB is a program of the Consortium for Oceanographic Research & Education (CORE), and helps to promote ocean literacy in high schools.
“It is a tremendous honor to have been chosen as the host for the NOSB. This event allows us to showcase MSRC and SBU to 125 of the most gifted high school students in the country, all of whom already have incredible knowledge of marine science. We hope Stony Brook will be their first choice when they decide where to attend college,” explained MSRC Dean and Director David Conover.
High school students and their coaches from across the country will be descending on SBU’s campus Friday morning to vie for the national title. Twenty-live teams, including our very own NY regional champions, Churchville-Chili High School, will be showing off their knowledge of ocean sciences and competing for scholarships and other prizes.
Churchville-Chili ‘s team has been studying hard and conducting mock competitions so that they will represent the NY region well this weekend. Churchville-Chili have always been strong competitors at NY’s regional NOSB event, the Bay Scallop Bowl, and this is their first opporturlity to compete at the nationals.
MSRC Associate Director Bill Wise, his assistant Kim Knoll, and Ph.D. student Lynn Abramson have been working tirelessly with CORE staff to organize every detail o f this year’s national competition. Lynn Abramson, the NOSB volunteer coordinator, has organized over 100 volunteers including faculty, staff, and alumni from MSRC, as well as from a range of other institutions such as NY Sea Grant, NYS DEC, NOAA, and Batelle.
“Stony Brook is very excited to host the 2007 NOSB finals,” said Wise. “We have developed a program of events and activities that will complement the competition itself and that will further engage these young people in this fascinating field.”
On Saturday, April 28th, student teams will have the opporwnity to explore marine environments around Long Island (LU), returning to the University later that evening for a performance of Romeo and Juliet at the Staller Center. Students will have their pick of ten different hands-on tield trips including the Vanderbilt Museum, MSRC’s Southampton Marine Station, Marine Mammal and Sea Tunic Rescue at the Riverhead Foundation, a local oyster shellfish hatchery, Flax Pond, LIS Ferry Monitoring Project, LIS Maritime Museum, Pine Barrens, Fire Island National Seashore, and a profiling exercise at Ocean Beach. The official competition does not kick off until Sunday morning, with the nail-biting final rounds and awards ceremony on Monday. Competition rounds will take place at the campus Student Activities Center.
For more information visit www.nosb.org
