Author: Team Marine

At the end of this past school year, former Team Marine member Aidan Richker helped to bring the famous documentary film maker Chris Paine to SAMOHI to do a special guest lecture for the marine bio students. Chris Paine is responsible for the shocking and informative documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? While at samo, Chris Paine also brought his all-electric Tesla car… Mr Kay even got to test drive it! Lots of thanks to Mr. Paine for coming down and Aidan for making it happen!

Earlier this summer Team Marine was talked about in an article in Good Magazine. The article elaborated on the group and the plastic boats we made from single use items that successfully floated earlier this year. Lots of thanks to all the people at Good Magazine!

Recently, the Heal the Bay foundation created a program known as “trash your friends”. When you “trash” a friend, their screen will fill up with single-use plastic bags among other types of trash and spreads awareness of the plastic-filled gyres all over the world. Adam Bagger and Kevin McDevitt from CourierContent created a short film about the “trash your friends” program that has received a lot of attention and was even short listed for Adobe’s 2011 Mofilm Cannes Lions contest. The link to the Heal the Bay video is posted below but much love out to CourierContent and the Heal the Bay foundation and good luck in the film contest.

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Nhi Ho and David Shabsovich, juniors at Santa Monica High School, will be representing Santa Monica at the USA Biology National Finals round.

Every year, over 10,000 students take the US Biology Olympiad (USABO) local test hoping to represent the United States in the International Biology Olympiad (IBO). 500 of these students then move onto the Semifinal round to take a grueling 2 hour test. Out of the 500 Semifinalists, 20 are then selected to attend an intensive residential program at Purdue University to learn about “advanced biological concepts and exacting lab skills.” Four students will then be selected to go to the International Olympiad at Taipei, Taiwan.

Out of the five students at Santa Monica High School that took the local exam in February, four made the Semifinalist round. Of those, only Nhi and David advanced to the next round.

“I’m so excited to be attending the training session at Purdue University during June. If my AP Biology teacher, Mr. Gaida, did not recommended me to take the local test, I would have never made it this far. I look forward to representing Santa Monica at the training in June,” said Nhi, 17.

Kathy Frame, director of USA Biology Olympiad and Special Projects, said, “[Nhi’s and David’s] stellar performance in the Olympiad identified [them] as a talented scholar placed among the best of the U.S. biology students. This is an achievement of which [they] can be very proud of.”

Lets all wish Nhi and David “good luck” in the biology olympiad. Lots of thanks to Mr. Gaida and everyone who made this possible.

On April 23th, Team Marine members participated in Caylc’s (The California Youth Leadership Council) Earthday Awareness event hosted by Calyc members at the Skirball Museum In Los Angeles. Calyc is a group of dedicated So Cal high school students that plan and implement events to raise awareness about endangered animal species and environmental issues. Team Marine member Nhi Ho and other team members helped educate little kids to reuse old t-shirts and cereal boxes to make bags and notebooks respectively. Nhi, Natalie, Alexis, and Maykel presented our Straw Boat made out of 8,000 recycled straws. Everything used to make the boat was either saved by Team Marine and SAMO students or reused including: bottle caps, straws, water bottles, and broken surf-boards. The Team Marine members spread awareness that reuse is often better than “throw-away” thinking for what cannot be recycled. Team Marine did a great job and we are very proud of their work. Lots of thanks to the Skirball Museum and Caylc!

The Algalita Marine Reasearch Foundation and 5 Gyres‘ Ship2Shore trip returned from traveling 2,300 miles to the center of the South Pacific Gyre on April 11th! The research team collected trawl samples and conducted experiments in the ocean and on the shores of Easter Island delivering shocking results. Congratulations to all the members on the Ship2Shore team!

WOOOOO! A month ago Benjamin Kay was entered into the Wyland Foundation’s Earth Month Teacher Hero Award by the I House Principle Ms. Semik. Kay, along with 30 other teachers, were recognized for being outstanding environmental teachers and activists. On April 14th, Mr Kay was selected from those 30 teachers to win the grand prize of $5,000 and be on CBS news! This money will be going towards building our Electric vehicle and will buy a lot of parts. Lots of thanks to the Wyland Foundation, Toyota, AES, and CBS/KCAL.