L to R is Garison Brooks, Nicole Peterson, Tyler Lantiegne, Nels Evens, Cole Somerville, Kyle Hagerman. Not pictured: Patricia Jackson, Dan Cardenas, Diane Murph.
For the fifth year in a row, Petersburg High School students participated in the Alaska Tsunami Bowl, a regional competition of the National Ocean Science Bowl.
Two teams, of five students, attended the February event in Seward. One team, Omnipotent Octopi headed by Tyler Lantiegne, ranked third of the 25 participating teams. The second team, Opulent Opisthoproctidae, finished 18th.
The Tsunami Bowl teams begin the competition at the beginning of the year with the research and writing of a 20-page paper. This year’s focus was “Estuarine Systems and the Importance of Freshwater in Marine Science.”
Omnipotent Octopi took first place on the research paper. The team looked at the Duncan Canal Estuary and the impacts of timber harvest. The team created a management plan to minimize the effects of timber harvest on the estuary.
The Omnipotent Octopi team, consisting of Tyler Lantiegne, Dan Cardenas, Diane Murph, Nicole Peterson and Kyle Hagerman, completed the competition with 88 points. Team coaches were Joni Johnson and Sunny Rice.
The second PHS team, Opulent Opisthoproctidae, took first place in the Quiz Bowl competition consolation bracket, Rice said. The Opulent Opisthoproctidae presented a research paper on the Stikine River and the Galore Creek Mine, which is in Canada, and developed a management plan for that, Rice said.
The Petersburg High School Opulent Opisthoproctidae team completed the competition with 33 points. The team changed members between project and quiz bowl, so the quiz points were not included in the overall score.
The deadline for the research paper was Dec. 1, 2012, for this year’s competition, but the teams did not learn their score for that until the February event. The teams also give a 20-minute presentation based on their research.
At the competition, the teams are challenged to a Round Robin-style Quiz bowl that makes up half of the teams’ score.
Tyler Lantiegne and Dan Cardenas both garnered $5,000 scholarships from Icicle Seafoods.
In addition to the research paper, presentation and Quiz Bowl, was also an art show. Alayna Fitts, Nicole Peterson and Alana Kvernvik captured awards for photography.
“It’s a great experience for them to write that 20-page paper and do the presentation, and get scored by university faculty,” Rice said. The participants also had a chance to spend some time at the Seward Sealife Center, she added.
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