HARBOR BRANCH - OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS TO COMPETE AT HARBOR BRANCH IN NATIONAL OCEAN SCIENCES BOWL

FT. PIERCE, Fla. -- On Saturday, March 4, teams of high school students from around the state and Puerto Rico will face off at the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in the "Florida Manatee Bowl" regional competition of the National Ocean Sciences Bowl. Teams will battle throughout the day in rapid-fire buzzer rounds answering questions on a wide range of ocean-related topics. Competitors will be vying for prizes, scholarships, and internships, and the winning team will progress to the national finals in Monterey, Calif. in April.

The National Ocean Science Bowl (www.nosb.org) is organized by the Consortium for Oceanographic Research and Education (CORE), a Washington, DC-based association of U.S. oceanographic research institutions, universities, laboratories, and aquaria. The competition was designed to showcase college and career opportunities in the ocean sciences for students in an exciting way, with the goal of helping to prepare the next generation of marine scientists.

Students around the country spend months working with volunteer coaches to get ready for competitions, which pit four-student teams against each other in intense double-elimination rounds. Students score points by being the first to buzz in with the correct answers to multiple choice and short-answer questions covering ocean biology, chemistry, geology, physics, navigation, geography, and related history, literature and public policy. In all, more than 1,400 scientists, researchers, teachers and marine science experts volunteer their time to make the regional and national events a success.

Harbor Branch is jointly sponsoring the event with the University of Miami's Rosential School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, and moderators and judges for the event will be drawn from both institutions.

Competitors will be arriving on Friday, March 3, for afternoon tours of Harbor Branch and an opening reception to include a mock competition round. The official competition will take place Saturday beginning at 8:00 a.m., with final rounds running from approximately 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. An awards ceremony will immediately follow the competition. Saturday night, there will be a dinner for participants

Journalists are welcome to attend any portion of the competition. For more information, please contact Mark Schrope, 772-216-0390, schrope@hboi.edu or Jan Petri at 772-216-1459 or petri@hboi.edu.

HARBOR BRANCH Oceanographic Institution was founded in Ft. Pierce, Fla., in 1971 to support the exploration and conservation of the world's oceans. The institution has held to this mission and grown into one of the world's leading oceanographic institutions with a 500-acre campus, over 200 personnel, and a fleet of sophisticated research ships and submersibles.