27th Blue Crab Bowl Highlights Marine Science for High School Knowledge Competition
It took a moment for reality to set in after the buzzer sounded the team members. In their second year of competition, Warwick High School won the Blue Crab Bowl after being eliminated before the previous year’s trophy rounds.
More than 80 students and 22 teachers representing 15 schools from across the Commonwealth filed into the Waterman’s Hall auditorium at 8:00 a.m. on Saturday, March 1. The students spent the day competing in a double-elimination ocean and marine science knowledge tournament for the 27th Blue Crab Bowl.
Each round of the tournament pits two teams of four against each other in an academic quiz bowl format. Players use buzzers to answer rapid-fire, multiple-choice questions, and teams work together to answer more complex analytical questions. Teams started the day with three rounds of round-robin match-ups, which were used to place them into brackets for the afternoon competition.
Hosted by William & Mary’s Batten School for Coastal & Marine Sciences & VIMS, and Old Dominion University’s Department of Ocean and Earth Sciences with support from Virginia Sea Grant, the Blue Crab Bowl is one of 24 regional competitions of the National Ocean Sciences Bowl (NOSB). The first NOSB competition launched in 1998, and Virginia’s Blue Crab Bowl was among the original NOSB competitions.
The event occurred over two days from Friday, February 28 through Saturday. On Friday, teams got a tour of the VIMS campus and labs, interacting with marine science professionals and scientists.
Rounding out the top four finishers were Seton School in second, the Governor’s School for Science and Technology in third, and the Catholic High School B team in fourth. As the 2025 Blue Crab Bowl winner, Warwick will advance to the NOSB National Finals Competition, which will be held virtually on May 17-18.
