Boise, ID  -- 05/09/2014 -- Last Thursday, four Boise High School students flew to Seattle representing the Northwest region in the National Oceanic Science Bowl competition. The former Treasure Valley Mathematics and Science Center students returned late Sunday night in possession of the Champion's Bowl as the 2014 NOSB National Champions.

 

The Boise win marks the first time a school system not from a coastal or Great Lakes state has won the final competition since it began 17 years ago. The competition, held in Seattle on May 1-4, is part of the Washington, D.C.-based Consortium for Ocean Leadership, which promotes ocean research research. The Boise District Team was one of 22 competing in the national finals.  

 

The NOSB finals, held at the University of Washington, brought the  regional champions, from Alaska, from Maine, from Mississippi, from Los Angeles and eighteen places in between to compete head-to-head in a quiz bowl contest to determine who really knew Oceanic Sciences. The landlocked Boiseans fought an uphill battle in every contest, against much larger schools and becoming the surprise winner on only their second visit to the National competition. 

 

The Boise District Team was captained by Nate Marshall a sophomore, sophomore teammates Karthik Mouli  and Benjamin Huang, and junior Eric Huang (no relation).  See photo. Superlative guidance and mentoring  was provided by volunteer coach Tony Baca. 

 

"At our very first meeting we all agreed our goal was to win nationals," said Baca. "The team worked hard, meeting once a week at the Boise Public Library, reviewing biology, geology, geography, marine policy, history, knots, ships and other aspects of ocean sciences.  They also studied ocean acidification, the theme of this year's competition."

 

One may ask, why a team from landlocked Idaho?  "We are all impacted by the ocean for better or worse," explained Baca.  "Ocean acidification and global warming go hand and hand.  Besides, we have salmon!"   

 

At nationals, the Boise team played well in the morning losing only to the team from Arcadia, last year's champion.  In the afternoon's double elimination rounds, the team again played well losing to Arcadia by 5 points in the semifinals.  Boise played through the challenger bracket to make it to the finals against Arcadia, but had to win two in a row against Arcadia in order to be crowned champion.  Boise won the first game by two points setting up the final game.

 

"That game started out slow, but we had a 10 point lead going into the team challenge portion," said Baca.  

 

Arcadia had always made up points in the team challenge portion, but not this time, Boise extended its lead and for the first time had a lead going into the second half.  In the end Boise won by 10 points.

  

As you can imagine, Boise Team members were excited and proud to have earned the title of champions of the National Oceanic Science Bowl.  

 

"At that point I knew we were only down by one question and could win," said Nate. "Man, there are a lot of questions on UN policy," explained Eric. "Those guys are fast!," said Karthik, referring to the Arcadia Team.  "It was fun getting to know some of the players from the Arcadia team," added Ben. 

 

As part of the national competition, each team must prepare a Scientific Executive Brief on a given piece of legislation.  This year they were asked whether the FORAM Act (Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act of 2009) should be reauthorized.  At the competition each player read part of their brief and was asked a question about the bill.  The team was graded on their written brief and their answers given at the competition. Boise also won second place on the Scientific Executive Brief.