Poudre High School Wins Regional Ocean Sciences Bowl Contest Hosted At CU-Boulder

Poudre High School of Fort Collins sailed to its second consecutive victory in the regional Ocean Sciences Bowl on Saturday, March 1, at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The team edged out its nearest competitor, Boulder High School, for the regional championship.

The competition is hosted by CU-Boulder's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, or CIRES. The Ocean Sciences Bowl is designed to generate interest in the marine sciences among high school students and uses oceans to teach a variety of disciplines including biology, chemistry, geology, physics and mathematics.

The Poudre High winners were David Hayes, Jesse Slater, Mike Grinolds, Heather Johnston and team captain Josh Metten. The students will now head to La Jolla, Calif., where they will compete for the national championship at the finals in April, to be held at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.

In addition to a paid trip to California, the team received a scholarship for a research cruise sponsored by the Sea Education Association. Wetsuits were donated by Scuba Joe of Boulder.

Poudre team Coach Jack Lundt recently coached another Poudre High science team to victory at the Feb. 1 Science Bowl. That team will be representing Colorado at the finals in Washington, D.C., in May. Two of his ocean science team members, Grinolds and Hayes, also are members of the Science Bowl team.

Lundt's strategy involved starting team practices in October to provide ample training time. Students met for one-and-a-half hours after school once a week, he said, and had additional assigned reading. "They also studied a lot on their own." 

Lundt teaches five chemistry classes every school day. In addition to coaching the Ocean Science and Science Bowl teams, each once a week, he coaches the Poudre Science Olympians twice a week. 

A Poudre teacher for four years, Lundt also coached a 1999 winning Ocean Sciences Bowl team at his previous school, Fort Collins High School.

"My life is devoted to nerds," he laughed. "But the contests really open up the student's eyes to new possibilities."

The regional contest last Saturday attracted 21 teams from Colorado and Wyoming.