2021 Science Without Borders® Challenge Finalists: 11-14 year old students
The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation is pleased to announce the finalists in our 2021 Science Without Borders® Challenge! This international student art contest engages students in important ocean issues through art. For this year’s competition, students were asked to illustrate one or more of the benefits mangroves provide to people, other organisms, or the environment.
Entries to the Science Without Borders® Challenge are judged in two categories based on age. Here are the finalists selected from the younger group of applicants, students 11-14 years old:
"Mother of the Mangroves" by Anika Mai, Age 13, New Zealand
Artist's Statement: Mangroves give shelter to a huge diversity of marine life and animals, the woman in the drawing represents, personifies, and speaks for the mangroves and everything in them. The way that shows that the woman represents mangroves is that she is surrounded by life like birds and fish since mangroves are full of wildlife and free of captivity. She is breathing implying that the mangroves and the life inside them breathe too. Segments of the image are coloured showing steady decline in mangroves and how they are dying out. The reason there are only two fish represents mangroves being a home for marine life, but due to their decline, many fish species have lost their habitats due to mangroves decreasing. Her turquoise hair represents the swampy marshes where mangroves grow. Her hair flows into roots showing the importance of mangroves to the environment; that they keep stability in the ecosystem.
