Are you an educator or scientist with a strong interest in education? Are you interested in earning some easy money for a few hours of your time?

The National Ocean Sciences Bowl® (NOSB) is looking for question writers during the summer of 2024 to write ocean and freshwater science questions for our 2025 competitions. The NOSB is an academic competition and program that addresses a national gap in environmental and earth sciences in public education by introducing high school students to and engaging them in ocean science, preparing them for ocean science-related and other STEM careers, and helping them become knowledgeable citizens and environmental stewards. The program is in its 27th year of exciting students about the ocean and inspiring them to pursue careers in a STEM field. We need your help to continue our strong impact.

We are looking for individuals with a strong collective knowledge of the ocean sciences– varying expertise in biology, chemistry, physics, geology, geography, technology, social science and marine policy- to write buzzer questions and Team Challenge Questions (TCQs) for the 2025 NOSB competitions. The high school participants are tested at the college undergraduate level. Question writers will be asked to write questions that would be considered moderate or difficult for this level of student. Sample NOSB questions can be found at: http://nosb.org/learn/sample-questions/.

Qualifications/Eligibility

  • Bachelor’s degree or demonstrated knowledge of one of the sciences preferred
  • Experience teaching (preferably with high school or undergraduate students)
  • Comfort using databases
  • Ability to write and enter all 150 required questions in the database by September 1, 2024
  • Ability to submit 6 TCQs by email by September 1, 2024
  • Ability to work independently and collaboratively with a team
  • Must NOT be a current NOSB coach in 2024 (or plan to be in 2025) or have a direct connection with current NOSB participants
  • Willingness to follow guidelines for submitting questions and sign a confidentiality agreement

Each Question Writer can earn up to a $1,000 honorarium. Each question writer will receive a $500 good faith payment for submitting all required questions by the deadline (150 buzzers & 6 TCQs). Each question writer can receive up to an additional $500, to be paid by January 2025, for the percentage of their submitted questions (both buzzers and TCQs) that are accepted by the NOSB Technical Advisory Panels.

To indicate interest, please send a cover letter (addressing your interest in this opportunity, ability to craft questions in general ocean science and your area of expertise, previous education experience, and history with the NOSB), your resume and 3 sample buzzer questions and one sample TCQ to Nicole Palma (npalma@ucar.edu) by COB Monday, June 17, 2024.

Note: If you’d like to write questions for the NOSB but cannot commit to the required amount, please reach out to nosb@ucar.edu to learn about submitting questions on a purely volunteer basis. Or check out our other volunteer opportunities here.