Congratulations to the first-place winner, Ms. Maja Young from the American School of Warsaw for her use of Osedax Worms to help decompose the bones of the deceased while reducing carbon emissions.

DEADLINE EXTENDED: April 30, 2022 Submissions are Due

Prizes

1st: Naming Rights to a Newly-Discovered Species,* iPad Mini, $250 Barnes & Nobel Gift Card

*Naming rights thanks to the generosity of the Professor Gregory Rouse and Avery Hiley of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography

2nd: $150 Barnes & Nobel Gift Card, Vaquita Adoption Certificate

3rd: $50 Barnes & Nobel Gift Card

Top 5: Signed copy of The Brilliant Abyss by Dr. Helen Scales

First Step: Inspiration

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The first step is to get inspired by a creature from the Deep Sea. If you want some reading material, you can read Dr. Helen Scales’s new book The Brilliant Abyss. Otherwise you can look online to find other sources of inspiration, like the Monterey Bay Aquarium website or the EV Nautilus Expedition.

If you want some example creatures to look at, you can look at the Inspiration page on this site.

Second Step: Idea

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Use an aspect of your chosen creature as inspiration for a solution to a problem on land. Just to be clear, you aren’t using the creature itself, only an aspect of the creature. For example, you could create a new kind of lamp taking inspiration from the bacteria-filled sac the anglerfish uses.

Third Step: Submit

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Once you’ve completed your project, you can submit it in the form of a Video, Picture, PDF, or Diagram of your idea. Be sure to include the creature from which you drew inspiration from, and if you worked in a group the names of all your group members.

Submissions are open until April 30th, 2022

Image from Edith Widder