By Tiffany Whitfield
On Saturday, February 10, high school students from across Virginia took part in the 26th Blue Crab Bowl (BCB), an ocean science competition. This year it was sponsored by Old Dominion University’s Department of Ocean & Earth Sciences and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. There were 80 high school students and 24 teacher/coaches representing 16 teams from across the Commonwealth of Virginia. Competitors faced off during the live head-to-head science competition. Two ODU College of Sciences alumni had the distinct opportunity of coaching their teams to victory while reminiscing about their journey in science.
Students who trained for months on various oceanography and scientific facts battled it out round after round. This year’s competition was especially special because the top two winning teams were coached by teachers who are also Ocean & Earth Sciences (OES) and Biological Sciences alumni.
The top four teams of the 2024 coveted Blue Crab Bowl competition are:
- 1st place: Broadwater Academy
- 2nd place: Grafton High School
- 3rd place: Catholic High School/Isle of Wight Academy
- 4th place: Catholic High School
Broadwater Academy teacher and BCB coach Charles Carlson obtained a Master of Science in Ocean & Earth Sciences (formerly Ocean, Earth, & Atmospheric Sciences) with a focus on numerical modeling of submarine groundwater discharge. “I was trained as a coach and assumed the role after my predecessor left,” said Carlson. He was a volunteer in the Spoonbill Bowl (Florida) as an undergraduate and in the Blue Crab Bowl as a graduate student (at ODU). “I love the opportunity it gives students to show their knowledge and connect with scientists in the field,” said Carlson.
For the first time, his students can boast that they earned first place in this year’s BCB competition. “I am incredibly proud of all of their accomplishments, in particular the seniors, whom I have taught since 7th grade,” said Carlson. “Winning this trophy has been the highlight of my teaching career.”
Currently, he teaches in Exmore which is located on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. His schedule is full with courses, but he manages to teach oceanography, dual enrollment marine biology/field experiences, Marine Science Seminar, AP statistics, Introduction to GIS, sustainable agriculture, and the ukulele.
Adrienne Richardson, a teacher at Grafton High School located in Yorktown, prepared her students for this year’s competition. Richardson teaches biology and AP environmental science and received a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences with a concentration in Marine Science. “Blue Crab Bowl was special to me because I was able to share much of the knowledge I gained from OES professors such as Dr. Fred Dobbs, Dr. David Burdige, Dr. Arnoldo Valle-Levinson, Dr. John McConaugha and Dr. Greg Cutter with my students,” said Richardson. “I learned so much from these marine scientists while a student and enjoyed sharing with my Blue Crab Bowl team about my time spent learning from each of these educators.”
Richardson reminisced with current OES faculty about the unique learning experiences like dropping CTD’s from a NOAA ship in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, to climbing aboard shipping containers in the middle of the night to sample ballast water, to measuring samples of effluent for TBT with an absorption spectrophotometer. “My time with the OES (formerly OEAS) department between 1996 and 1998 left me with a genuine love of marine science and I am grateful that I was able to share this love and knowledge with my students, particularly this year’s Blue Crab Bowl team,” said Richardson.
“The winner was determined in a closely contested final match. A team from Broadwater Academy has been a participant in the Blue Crab Bowl for many years, but this was their first win,” said Bill Dunn, ODU’s regional coordinator and a former Blue Crab Bowl coach.
“The Blue Crab Bowl has legendary status for the dedication of the mentors and the support from the institutions who sponsor this event,” said Professor Rodger Harvey, current interim chair of Department of Ocean & Earth Sciences. “This program has continued for over two decades to bring talented high school students into a fun competition which exposes them to marine sciences; an exceptional effort by any measure.”
Both winning teams’ teachers/coaches were proud of their students.
Carlson said, “I am incredibly proud of all of their accomplishments, in particular the seniors, who I have taught since 7th grade. Winning this trophy has been the highlight of my teaching career.”
“My team is heavily involved in sports, extra-curricular activities, mentorship programs and some of them even work,” said Richardson. “The day of the competition, they ended up seeded somewhere in the middle of pack and as a result they had to compete in 9 out of 10 rounds.” The Grafton team had only one bye the entire day and had to answer over 100 different questions in order to get to second place. “They never gave up, they fought to the bitter end and kept me laughing the entire three months we spent together,” said Richardson.
A bonus prize for the first-place team will include (at a later date this spring) a one-day oceanographic research cruise with ODU OES Professor, Richard Zimmerman, Ph.D. and his team to the vicinity of the off-shore wind farm (about 35 miles off the coast) where they will participate in an ongoing research project involving the optical properties of water to be scheduled later this spring.
As the Regional Coordinator for VIMS, the host site this year, Bethany Smith organized all the on-site activities. This year’s BCB was held at VIMS in Gloucester, Virginia. Both ODU and VIMS had staff and faculty who volunteered countless hours to make this year’s competition a memorable one. Students were able to participate in labs and collections, a career panel discussion, dinner and a mock bowl on Friday night.
Represented among our 75 volunteers in addition to our own institutions were a variety of other organizations, including private industry, NOAA and the U.S. Navy.
Dunn said, “This will be my last National Ocean Science Bowl (NOSB) event as a regional coordinator. I started as an assistant coach in 2003 and immediately saw the value of the NOSB program for my students. I became head coach in 2005 and retired from teaching and coaching in 2017. After one year as a volunteer, ODU offered me the opportunity to be the ODU RC. I hope to continue as a volunteer going forward.”
This was the 26th collaboration between VIMS and ODU's Department of Ocean & Earth Sciences in putting on the Blue Crab Bowl going back to the first year of NOSB in 1998.
“Initial feedback from parents, students, coaches and our volunteers were extremely positive with many comments about how wonderful it is to see the competition,” said Dunn. “Many mentioned that they are already looking forward to 2025.”
