Students from Oak Park High School won first place in the QuikSCience Challenge. Their achievement was announced at an awards ceremony at the offices of Quiksilver Inc. in Huntington Beach on April 8.

The prize for the OPHS students will be a weeklong trip to the USC Wrigley Marine Science Center on Catalina Island.

Two teams of OPHS students participated in the challenge. The team that won first place presented a project called “A is for Algae— The Science of Slime!”

The event is designed to spark the interest of the students in science and the ocean and encourage their capacity for leadership. The student teams create an ocean science lesson plan, a community service project and a proposed solution to an environmental challenge.

The high school teams also create a research project proposal. The teams wrap up their projects with creative presentations to a panel of judges.

For more information about the challenge, go to www.usc.edu/ quikscience.