2022 Science Without Borders® Challenge Semi-Finalists: 15-19 year old students
The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation is pleased to announce the semi-finalists in our 2022 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 ways people can use a ridge-to-reef approach to conservation to preserve coral reefs.
Entries to the Science Without Borders® Challenge are judged in two categories based on age. Here are the semi-finalists selected from the older group of applicants, students 15-19 years old:
"A Fragment of Hope" by Lara Orlandi, Age 16, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
'Restoration' is crucial to a 'ridge to reef' management approach and in combatting damage done by unsustainable farming, where run-off fertilisers have caused eutrophication and sedimentation. My artwork shows restoration through coral farming. One fragment of coral is nurtured in a coral nursery like the one illustrated, then planted to encourage growth within damaged reefs. This fragment provides oxygen, reducing anoxic conditions created by eutrophication and allowing many other coral species to develop. This is represented by the flurry of coral that explodes from the fragment, varying in colour and texture. The coral will also become a habitat for diverse communities of aquatic wildlife, countering the habitat loss due to sedimentation. This is depicted by all the different aquatic species rushing around the reef. The contrast between the tiny coral fragment and the intense biodiversity reflects a message of hope for coral reef conservation: one organism can save so many.
