2023 Science Without Borders® Challenge Finalists: 15-19 year old students
The Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation is delighted to announce the finalists in our 2023 Science Without Borders® Challenge! This international contest engages students in important ocean issues through art. This year we asked students to create a piece of art that highlights the beauty and importance of a marine species that is on the brink of extinction.
This year we received more entries than ever before. Over 1,200 entries flooded in from 67 different countries, and let us tell you, it was no easy feat to choose the finalists. We hope you will be as impressed with the submissions we received as we were.
Entries to the Science Without Borders® Challenge are judged in two categories based on age. Here are the finalists selected from the older group of applicants, students 15-19 years old:
"Lifeguard Needed" by Lena Badylak, Age 15, Poland
ARTIST’S STATEMENT: Whales have been a part of our ocean ecosystem for over 30 billion years, providing us with half the oxygen we breath and combating climate change. But we've been hunting those gentle giants for their oil and meat with increasingly sophisticated technology. Now, most of whale species, such as fin whale on my picture are close to extinct. Their state is a mirror of the situation we forced our seas into. The extinction cycle must be broken. We are the reason for the sixth extinction and we must be the ones to prevent it. We need to become guards of marine species lives. The jump of whale in the picture is a cry for help, also a break through the surface, which symbolises breaking out of the cycle, a change. The lifebuoy has a symbolic meaning of 'saving' and is also a tool used by lifeguards.
