May 17, 2002 – As part of planning for the Nonpoint Source Pollution Conference this week at the Westin Resort on St. John, the organizers sponsored a contest challenging seventh and eighth grade students on St. Thomas, St. John and St. Croix to come up with visual aids depicting nonpoint source pollution.
"They had to construct a model," said Katy Garland of the University of the Virgin Islands Marine Advisory Service.
About two dozen students put on their thinking caps and conjured up some nifty exhibits. The top four have been on display at the two-day conference Thursday and Friday.
The contest had two first-place and two-second place winners. First-place winner Tricia Moorehead, an eighth grader at Julius E. Sprauve School, built a model showing sediment running down a papier-mache hill with a house perched above. First-place winner Sherima Pedro, an eighth grader at St. Patrick's School on St. Croix, created a model with animals grazing at the water's edge — their manure a source of pollution.
Second-place prize winner Kenya Troutman, a seventh grader at St. Patrick's School, showed animals along the road. And second-place winner Hector Peguero, a seventh grader at St. Mary's School on St. Croix, depicted a house near the beach with a coral-filled reef in the water.
The winning students collected prizes of $100 each for first place and $50 each for second place, plus a trip to Friday's session of the conference.

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