By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Columnist

A group of five Honolulu students went to Washington last month to make the case for preserving the ocean environment.

The Hawai'i group joined 12 other contingents, all from coastal states and all associated with local aquariums, for the National Student Summit on Ocean Issues.

The teenagers, McKinley High School students Kit Leong, Angela Li, Anthony Loui, Mickey Ngugen and Diana Wan, were accompanied by science teacher Barbara Rogers and Waikiki Aquarium acting director of education Mark Heckman.

In identifying key coastal issues, the Hawai'i students differed from those in the other states, said Loui, a junior.

"The overall theme was coastal runoff, but for the Hawai'i group it was more overfishing and coral bleaching," he said. "Those were the two major areas that we thought were important."

They were the only state group to identify those concerns, but Heckman said they made a powerful case.

"If this had been a competition, they would have won," he said.

The group concluded that overfishing has a number of effects on the reef. One of them is that when too many limu-eating fishes are taken off the reef, seaweed can grow more aggressively, overwhelming slower-growing coral, Loui said.

Bleaching, a sign of stress in reef-building corals, is often associated with warmer water temperatures, and can be both an indicator and a result of global warming.

Loui said his own interest in ocean issues started during his sophomore year, when he participated in a science fair project on invasive species in the marine environment.

"That basically sparked my interest," he said.

Heckman said he took the students on a reef walk and gave them reading material before the Washington trip, and assumed they would conclude that alien seaweeds would be an issue they would identify. But the students on their own concluded that the overfishing and coral bleaching issues were ones they were willing to advocate.

They presented their findings to ocean experts and government officials at the National Geographic Society and at the executive office of the White House. Among those listening was James L. Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

"I think each one of these kids is going to make a mark on the world," Heckman said.

The trip to Washington was sponsored by the Waikiki Aquarium, a Coastal America Learning Center, and the state Department of Education.

Jan TenBruggencate is The Advertiser's Kaua'i Bureau chief and its science and environment writer. Reach him at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.