Canyon Crest students win virtual Garibaldi Bowl

Canyon Crest Academy students won the Garibaldi Bowl, a regional ocean science academic competition that is part of the National Ocean Sciences Bowl. The Garibaldi Bowl, hosted virtually by the University of San Diego on Feb.12, tests students’ knowledge of ocean science disciplines through buzzer-style, multiple-choice questions and open-ended team challenge questions.

This is the fifth Garibaldi Bowl victory for a team from CCA.
Students on this year’s championship team include Mason Holmes, Emily Zhang, Andrew Kuang, Andrew Zhang, and Shrey Goel. The team is coached by Mary Holmes.

The Canyon Crest team will join winners from 21 other regional bowls in May for the virtual National Ocean Science Bowl (NOSB) Finals.

In addition to testing their general knowledge about ocean-STEM, this year’s competitors needed to understand the complex role the ocean plays in regulating climate as well as how climate change manifests in the ocean and what opportunities ocean-STEM could offer to mitigate the impacts of climate change. For this year’s competition theme, “Climate Change: Ocean Science and Solutions”, students had to go beyond learning about just the mechanics of ocean circulation patterns or sea level rise and into how that information can lead to new offshore wind turbines or inform coastal adaptation decisions.

“As all the best scientists know, there’s more to science than just knowing facts: Connecting ideas across disciplines, investigating relationships between science and society, and being able to contextualize their research in the current moment is critical for scientists working on the climate crisis,” said Kristen Yarincik, director of the NOSB at the Consortium for Ocean Leadership in a news release. “Using climate change as a case study gives NOSB students a unique opportunity to trace the whole life cycle of scientific inquiry, seeing how observations turn into applications. Even if they pursue a career outside ocean science, NOSB students will be prepared to think critically and solve the most pressing problems of our times.”