From Alaskan Waters to Hawaiian Shores: NOSB Teams Reel in Knowledge at the American Fisheries Society Annual Meeting

By Keenan Sanderson, Ketchikan NOSB Team Coach, Tsunami Bowl and Indigenous Food Sovereignty Specialist, Ketchikan Indian Community

The Ketchikan National Ocean Sciences Bowl teams, the Saber-Toothed Salmon, the Saber-Toothed Smolts, and Saber-Toothed Fry, attended the 154th Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society in Honolulu, Hawaii last month to learn about US freshwater and marine fisheries. At this conference, students were able to learn from a variety of fisheries professionals from university, government, and private entities on current fisheries population, ecology, commerce, and cultural research. This conference had nearly had 1,000 individual presentations and students were able to watch about 30 each throughout the week. While taking in this new research, students observed how professionals communicate their research to the community through these presentations. The Alaska Tsunami Bowl is the only region in the National Ocean Sciences Bowl program that requires high school students to do a research project and 15-minute presentation as part of the local competition. This conference was mostly 15 minute presentations. The students were able to see what types of presenting they may like to emulate for their competition in a few months. While us coaches could have taught them ourselves, what better way than to have the professionals show them.

However, this isn’t the first American Fisheries Society event that the Ketchikan teams has attended. Previously, Ketchikan had attended the American Fisheries Society Alaska Chapter conference in Fairbanks, Alaska in 2023. The attendees, chapter representatives, and the students all thought that having high school students at this conference was such a success that they worked on ways to bring us back to future meetings. These entities have never seen this many high school students attend these conferences but saw the value in having us return. As a result of these efforts to bring us back, along with some other activities, the Alaska Chapter was presented an award for the best Large Chapter in the western United States this year.

Overall this trip was incredibly empowering to these students. While we are an NOSB team and want to win our regional bowl, our goal as coaches is to inspire the next generation of fisheries biologists, oceanographers, and marine biologists in Alaska. Our team is located on an island in southeast Alaska which makes it difficult for students to travel for anything. For some of our students this was the first time they were ever out of Alaska and haven’t seen other parts of the world first hand. This opened their eyes to see what other opportunities were actually out there for them. Additionally, with us visiting the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology they were able to see some intense shark and coral research that was happening in Hawaii. Seeing all of this happen in person has motivated our students to learn more throughout our season to help us reach our goal of winning the Tsunami Bowl! This trip wouldn’t have been possible without the help of a number of entities. Alaska, Hawaii, & National SeaGrants, the World Wildlife Fund, The Coral Resilience Lab at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, OceansAlaska, and the Alaska Chapter of the American Fisheries Society all had a huge hand in making this experience possible for our students.

Shout out to the following Ketchikan NOSB students for making an impact at the Annual Meeting of the American Fisheries Society: