The North Carolina high school finalists competed Saturday March 1st  Blue Heron Bowlfor the challenge of making it to the National competition in Seattle, WA in April in the  National Ocean Sciences Bowl.  What is the bowl you ask?  It's an awesome competition between schools putting their best and brightest students on the front line against other schools quizzing their smarts about ocean dynamics and the science around it.  According the National Ocean Sciences Bowl website, "The Consortium for Ocean Leadership, representing leading oceanographic institutions universities and aquaria, manages a national academic competition for high schools on topics related to the study of the oceans — the National Ocean Sciences Bowl®(NOSB). The NOSB is a nationally recognized and highly acclaimed high school academic competition that provides a forum for talented students to test their knowledge of the marine sciences including biology, chemistry, physics, and geology. The NOSB was created in 1998 in honor of the International Year of the Ocean and since its inception, the competition has grown to include 25 regional competition locations with 300 schools and over 2,000 students participating annually."

"The NOSB mission is to enrich science teaching and learning across the United States through a high-profile national competition that increases high school students’ knowledge of the oceans and enhances public understanding and stewardship of the oceans."  Plastic Ocean Project, Inc. was among this amazing crowd of high school students, teachers, North Carolina State faculty and colliate students. We were there with our plastics collected from mid-opean regions  as our art exhibit hung on the Jordan Hall science building wall to strike up a conversation about plastic pollution.  Because of the funding received from Project Aware, our "What goes around comes around" art exhibit was there visually illustrating the multiple negative impacts caused by plastic pollution.  It was an honor for me to present to an astute audience not only to discuss our research and why it is important, but to also share ideas about possible solutions.