Coastal Studies for Girls alumnae, Kate Laemmle of Alna and Colleen Hendricks of Wiscasset competed on a team of fellow CSG alumnae at the regional division of the National Ocean Sciences Bowl held on Feb. 7 at the University of Maine campus in Orono.

The University of Maine School of marine sciences hosted the 2015 Nor’easter Bowl, a regional ocean science competition for high school students in Northeast New England. The Nor’easter Bowl is a regional division of the national Ocean Sciences Bowl, a national competition in which students put their knowledge of the marine realm to the test.

Approximately 100 participants from Maine and New Hampshire schools competed at the event. Players competed in teams, answering a series of trivia style questions related to the oceans and marine science.

Winners of the New England regional competition will move onto nationals in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, where they will face off against the winners from 22 other regional competitions. That event will be held in April.

Kate, currently a junior at Lincoln Academy, and Colleen, currently a junior at Wiscasset High School, both attended the spring 2014 semester at Coastal Studies for Girls — a Marine Science and Leadership semester school for 10th grade girls located on the shores of Casco Bay in Freeport.

With CSG Marine Science instructor, Dr. Elizabeth Halliday and three other classmates from their semester, the girls represented their school by taking fifth place in the New England division and finishing undefeated in the morning round robin competition.

Unlike other teams that do this every year, and practice every week as part of a class or school club, Kate and Colleen squeezed this event into their busy schedules and banked on what they learned a year ago while immersed in a hands-on intensive Marine Ecology class at CSG.

Along with their impressive performance, the CSG team won a kayaking trip for 14 that they hope to use for a Semester 9 reunion this summer.