After a day of intense competition, the Marshfield High School team (top photo) won the varsity division of the Seventh Annual Lake Sturgeon Bowl, Wisconsin’s regional competition of the National Ocean Sciences Bowl, on February 21 at UW-Milwaukee. More than 100 students competed in teams from around the state.

The championship team won an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., in April to attend the National Ocean Sciences Bowl competition, as well as several days of related field excursions in the Norfolk, Virginia, area.

Milwaukee’s Inland Seas School of Expeditionary Learning took first place in the junior varsity division, winning the opportunity to be research assistants during a one-day scientific voyage on the UW-Milwaukee research vessel Neeskay. The team will collect data as part of a research project led by Carmen Aguilar and Russell Cuhel of the Great Lakes WATER Institute at UW-Milwaukee.

The UW Sea Grant Institute is one of the financial sponsors of the Lake Sturgeon Bowl.

UW-Milwaukee’s January ‘Winterim’ provided the opportunity for students to get their sea legs while becoming well grounded in the natural sciences. Seven students from UW-Milwaukee and UW-La Crosse earned three credits in geosciences sailing between Florida and the Bahamas aboard the Denis Sullivan, a recreation of a 19th century Great Lakes three-masted schooner. 

The 15-day course, offered by UW-Milwaukee’s study abroad program, is an introduction to oceanography and marine and nautical sciences. Wisconsin Sea Grant’s education outreach coordinator, Jim Lubner, served as the faculty director for the excursion.

The program was enhanced through a partnership with the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Ft. Pierce, Fla., where the tour began and finished, and the Caribbean Marine Research Center on Lee Stocking Island in the Bahamas, the sailing destination. Staff scientists provided the students with a solid foundation in ocean sciences and field and laboratory methods.

While aboard the ship, the students acted as crew, steering by compass, plotting positions, hoisting sails, and setting anchor just as sailors had done on Great Lakes schooners in the 1800s. For their final projects, students made presentations on a variety of topics ranging from using the Gulf Stream as an alternative energy source to piracy in the Bahamas.

“It was really exciting to see the students get such a good grounding in the oceanographic and nautical sciences,” said Lubner. “But we’re always open to the teachable moments that come frequently in a program like this.”