Clark Magnet students cover technology and science in the classroom, but one group of five students took to the California sandy coast for a class assignment that turned into a $10,000 prize.

Led by teacher Dominque Evans-Bye, the students were awarded $10,000 in scholarship grants through the Lexus Eco Challenge, an educational contest for environmental action. The team was one of 16 U.S. high schools to qualify for the Final Challenge opportunity to $30,000 in grand prizes.

The group of students call their team the 'Ecosavers', and are all enrolled in the second year of a marine science class which studies Environmental GIS, a program that covers different ecosystems and detects natural and man-made factors within that ecosystem.

For their winning project, the students studied lobster tissue samples from the Channel Islands, the Los Angeles Harbor, Ventura County, Long Beach and Anacapa Island.

The lobster experiment originated with a 2007 project, where Evans-Bye’s class tested sediment in Los Angeles Harbor for heavy metals.

“We also collected different marine life collected at different tropic levels and had that tested in relation with those heavy metals,” she said. “We found that lobster and halibut had really high levels of arsenic and mercury in them so we wanted to see how far that contamination spread from LA Harbor.”

During the year, Evans-Bye dove underwater with her friends and anyone she could convince, collecting lobster for tissue sample. 

Lobsters stay at the bottom of the ocean floor and are a good indicator for contaminants that also sink into the sediment, said Clark Magnet student Yeprem Chavdarian, a 16-year-old.

Lab technicians at Iirmes Lab at Cal State University Long Beach showed the students how to do organic and inorganic testing on the lobster tissue samples. The Ecosavers dissected the samples, preparing the samples for digestion of tissues to find pollutants.

Using information from the 2007 project, the group gathered information, made a presentation and submitted it to the Lexus Environmental Challenge.

“We spent a lot of time and effort with it,” Yeprem said. “In the beginning, I had no faith in the project. We all came together with teamwork and pulled through.”

Yeprem’s teammate, 16-year-old Steve Kechichian designed the maps displaying results from the experiment, including where the Ecosavers found the lobster, how much of the contaminants are there and how high the levels were.

The team will split the money for each student, said Steve.

“Most of all of it’s going to go toward college funding,” Steve said. “If that doesn’t work out maybe I’ll buy a Mac computer for my college years.”

Edward Kazaryan, 16-year-old and Tania Khanlari, 17, manage media for the project, including an upcoming blog, filming and editing video footage while the team studied the lobster at the laboratory, composed a podcast on Clark High School’s website, photos and power point presentations.

Glendale Unified School District will award the group for their successful project on January 18, Edward said.

“I’ve never really won something big in my life like this and I guess it just feels good,” Edward said. “I like everybody, they’re my friends. They’re good teammates and they know what they’re doing.”

The deadline for the second challenge in the contest is January 19. For this, the Ecosavers are entering a new project focusing on air and climate, said 18-year-old team member Brian Higgins.

The students hope to win this next conservation challenge later this month, Evans-Bye said.

“This group did an awesome job,” Evans-Bye said. “I’m really proud of what they’ve accomplished and what they’ve learned from it, too.”