NAMEPA Art Winner Awarded Family Membership At Mystic Aquarium

By Becky Giantonio 

Mystic, CT - The North American Marine Environment Protection Association (NAMEPA) and Immersion Learning™ are pleased to announce the winners of a national art contest focused on the marine environment. The contest challenged students across North America to create a poster around the theme “Let’s change habits, not the climate”. The winning poster, created by Kevin Lopez, a fifth grader at Summit Lane School in Levittown, N.Y., will represent North America on an International Marine Environment Protection Association (INTERMEPA) poster that will be distributed throughout the maritime world.

“This is the first time that NAMEPA has participated in this global event,” stated NAMEPA Founding Chairman Clay Maitland. “We were delighted to partner with Immersion to make this contest meaningful and wide ranging. The winning poster was certainly in line with NAMEPA’s mission to ‘Save our Seas’.”

The art contest was open to students ages 5 to 13 in schools and at Immersion sites in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, including Boys & Girls Clubs and other after-school settings. Immersion, a division of Sea Research Foundation, is a dynamic, hands-on science education program that provides schools and informal learning organizations with the opportunity to host interactive science experiences for students in grades 4 through 8.

“Collaborating with NAMEPA in this contest was a natural fit for Sea Research Foundation,” said Dr. Stephen Coan, president and CEO of Sea Research Foundation. “NAMEPA’s efforts directly align with our mission to protect the ocean environment. This contest was an opportunity to build upon our invaluable partnership while inspiring students across the nation to think about ways they can conserve our marine environments and share that message.”

Lopez’s work, selected from 70 submissions, features an underwater world polluted with garbage. The animals hold picket signs that plea for help and urge us to change our ways, while a fisherman and people looking into the water ask themselves, “What have we done?” 

The winning poster will be sent to Greece, where it will join entries from INTERMEPA: HELMEPA (Greece), TURMEPA (Turkey) and CYMEPA (Cyprus). The compilation poster will be distributed to maritime industry outlets, including the United Nations agency the International Maritime Organization, which is the regulatory body for the industry.

Lopez will receive a family membership to the Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration, an Animal Adoption Kit, 16-inch plush beluga whale and a signed book and photograph from famed ocean explorer Dr. Robert Ballard. His and the 11 finalists’ artwork will appear in a calendar and will be on exhibition at Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration and on Immersion’s Web site (immersionpresents.org) in April.

Finalists will also receive a letter and autographed photo from Dr. Ballard.
Finalists include:
* Amanda Bohl, grade 5, Meadowbrook Elementary, East Meadow, NY
* Lydia Grace Clarkin, grade 4, home-schooled, Coventry, RI
* Kaylee Hernandez, grade 5, Summit Lane School, Levittown, NY
* Taylor Labbe, grade 5, Anna M. McCabe Elementary, Smithfield, RI
* Bernardo Díaz Lozano, grade 2, Columbia Institute, San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León, Mexico
* Nene Masuda, kindergarten, Columbia Institute, San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León, Mexico
* Audra J. Ravenelle, grade 5, Anna M. McCabe Elementary, Smithfield, RI
* Peyton Ruhl, grade 6, Beach Street Middle School, West Islip, NY
* Samantha Thomas, grade 5, Farmersburg Elementary School, Farmersburg, IN
* Aliyah Torres, grade 6, Roosevelt Middle School, New Britain, CT
* Kenneth James Harold Descheene, Boys & Girls Clubs of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, Hollywood, FL

To see these students’ entries, visit the online art gallery at immersionpresents.org.

About NAMEPA
The North American Marine Environment Protection Association was officially launched in 2007.  In keeping with the mission of MEPAs worldwide, its aim is to increase environmental awareness and motivation of the human element within shipping and land-based industries that have a vested interest in preservation of the marine environment. Specifically, NAMEPA has the goal of educating the wider public and school communities about the critical importance of the world’s oceans to mankind and the maritime industry’s role and actions to preserve it. NAMEPA is a maritime industry led initiative to “Save the Seas”, and welcomes members who share this mission.  For more information, go to www.namepa.net.

About Immersion Learning™
Immersion Learning™ was founded by Dr. Robert Ballard and Dr. Stephen Coan in 2002. Through live broadcasts from scientific expeditions, hands-on activities and an engaging Web site, this non-profit science education organization brings ocean adventures and discoveries from Mystic Aquarium, the Institute for Exploration, the University of Rhode Island and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to more than 500,000 students in classrooms, after-school settings, such as Boys and Girls Clubs, and other formal and informal learning arenas each year.

About Sea Research Foundation, Inc.
Mystic Aquarium, Institute for Exploration and Immersion Learning™ are divisions of Sea Research Foundation, Inc., a private, non-profit, charitable organization incorporated in the State of Connecticut. The mission of Sea Research is to inspire people to care for and protect our ocean planet through education, research and exploration.