Here’s one for all you hardcore aquaphiles to wade into.
What genera of marine algae aren’t calcified?
A Caulerpa species off Hawaii
Image courtesy of Deep Water Macroalgal
Meadows 2004 Exploration, NOAA-OE
Stumped? Well Team 585 from Juneau-Douglas High School nailed the question in seconds, and went on to win the championship of the 10th annual Alaska Region Ocean Sciences Bowl. (Also called the Tsunami Bowl.)
It was caulerpa, of course, a widely distributed family that includes the invasive “killer algae” species infesting the Mediterranean Sea since the 1980s.
Try again. What do you call the blue whale when you’re wearing one of those white jackets with the pocket protectors?
You say Sibbaldus musculus.
Blue whale / NOAA
Because they could fathom such questions, the first place team — Drake Skaggs, Hillary Buck, Eva Ceder and Deidre Ratigan — won a tuition waiver to the University of Alaska Fairbanks and a trip to Stonybrook, New York, to compete in the National Ocean Sciences Bowl in late April.
Eva Ceder, Drake Skaggs, Hillary Buck, Deidre Ratigan.
Hank Pennington, Pennington Photography.
They were among 41 school students in nine different teams from around
Alaska, including three teams from Juneau-Douglas High School, two teams from Kenny Lake in the Copper River Valley, and one team each from Tenakee Springs, Unalaska, Soldotna, and Cordova.
The competion, modeled on the National Ocean Sciences Bowl, is like a game show. The students grapple with hundreds of questions in a Jeopardy-style format.
A release from the UAF School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences goes further:
Drake Skaggs, the captain of Team 585, says the win was not just about
his team’s knowledge of the oceans. “You have to know how to play the
game,” said Skaggs. “That can be just as important as knowing the
answers. There were a lot of smart kids there– I think it helped that we
had the experience from playing last year.”“Team 585 was ravenous for victory,” said Clay Good, longtime Tsunami
Bowl coach and oceanography teacher at Juneau-Douglas High School, “no
doubt because they were survivors of last year’s avalanche-crippled
Tsunami Bowl in Seward.”For Ocean Bowlers Juneau Empire story Alaska Ocean Sciences Bowl National Ocean Sciences Bowl Caulerpa: Saga of killer algae Blue whale primer Blue whale call “As a result, they spent this entire year focused on reclaiming the NOSB
banner for Juneau,” said Good.The Tsunami Bowl’s second place winners, the Juneau-Douglas High School
Ice Pirates, won tuition waivers to the University of Alaska Southeast.
Juneau-Douglas High School Team Aquarius earned third place. Although
Juneau-Douglas High won the top three prizes, the performance by all of
the teams was inspiring for the event judges, volunteers and audience
members.
The champs confer
Alaska Ocean Sciences Bowl“The knowledge these students have of the ocean and its living resources
is impressive,” said Denis Wiesenburg, dean of the School of Fisheries
and Ocean Sciences at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “I hope they
will become part of the next generation of ocean scientists. Alaska will
be well represented in the scientific community by these brilliant
students.”
Next year, the national finals will take place April 25-27 in Seward Alaska for the first time, with 26 teams of ocean-savvy students from around the country competing for the championship.