 Think Tech Hawaii, Civil Engagement Lives Here. And we're back live. We are Young Talent's Making Way, all here on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm Andrea Gabriela. I'm your host. And every Tuesday we talk about things in science that matter to Hawaii with our brilliant school students and their science projects. And today we don't have just one Young Talent, but we have three of them making way with a project carried out to investigate the effects of sunscreen chemicals on coral reefs. It is my pleasure to introduce you to this marvelous team from Island Pacific Academy in Kapolei. Welcome to the show. Welcome. Welcome. So some introductions first. So we have here Audrey Ramps-Bottom. Is that right? Yeah. And you are... Hello. Hi. Hello. Nice to have you here. Welcome. At Island Pacific Academy. Yes. Welcome. Welcome. And then we have in the middle, we have Zahir Golko. Yes. Is that right? Yes. Nice to have you here, Zahir. Welcome. Thanks for having me. And then finally, last but not least, we have Emma Rose Lai-Oen. Yes. Nice to have you here. Nice to have you here. Welcome. And we also welcome Michelle Bradley, who is here with us today. She is the vice principal at Island Pacific Academy. Welcome to the show. Welcome, Michelle. So, Kara Reeves and sunscreen chemicals that end up in our oceans in the water. What's the big story about this? What's the importance of the science projects that you carried out at Island Pacific Academy in Kapolei? Well, when you think about it, the ocean is a huge part of the culture here in Hawaii. And with that, we need to protect our skin from the sun. So we all use sunscreen. Right? Sun is really bright in Hawaii. Exactly. And we have a lot of chemicals in our sunscreens that we use that do affect our coral reefs. And we need our coral reefs because without them, we lose shelter for lots of animals in our ecosystem. And it really could affect Hawaii. And also, I guess, the tourism has a big importance because the tourists come to see the reefs, the beautiful beaches and oceans. But at the same time, the sunscreen they wear to protect themselves is harming our coral reefs. Is that right? Yeah. So what is exactly a coral reef? What is it? A coral reef is made up of multiple different species of coral that come together to form a reef. And on that, many fishes and tropical fishes and algae can live. They're normally found towards inner shores. And some of them can be found a little bit deepers. But typically, a coral reef is what people think of, is around Hawaii, around the base of all the different corals. Wow. So they need sunlight to thrive. So it's basically a living organism, a coral reef. Coral is a plant and an animal. So they do photosynthesize. Oh. Okay. Wow. So the coral that we see, the kind of limestone layers, rocky kind of thing, that's an animal. It's actually many animals. It's many animals together. Yes. A lot of different cells clustered together to form one coral. That coral slowly grows by producing more cells that, depending on if it's asexy reproducing or asexy reproducing in the water. Wow. Okay. So you carried out the science projects to understand what happens when these tiny animals that make up the reef, the corals, come in contact with the chemicals in the sunscreens. So what areas did you consider for this project? So we chose to use the most commonly found coral in Hawaii, which is the Hawaiian lace coral, or poslapora damacornis. We used the youngest stage of where it grows, so right after it's born. We used the larvae in its youngest stage because using the sunscreen and how it would affect it, we wanted to see how it would change over time and how it would affect its growth later on when it grows up. And I believe we have some pictures. Maybe let's have our first slide up so we can see something of the work that you carried out. Okay, so here, oh, is that Christmas? Yes. We did our things during winter break just because we're all available and we had the time to do it together. Okay. It took a week overall just to prepare and watch, observe over time. So what are we looking at here? Is this your lab at Island Pacific Academy? No. So we actually went in town to Sand Island where we did this experiment at the Hawaii State Coral Restoration Nursery because it's illegal to work with coral without a permit. That's right. Yeah, we want it. Yeah. And so this experience that you carried out to investigate these coral reefs, how did you carry them out? How did you do it? You were part of this institute, so you were able to work with professionals. And so what did you learn from them as part of this research project? Actually what was really cool is when we went there, they wanted to let us do most of it. So we did all of our research. They only helped us with getting our materials and lab space and natural coral larvae itself. So we did them like teaching us or like doing the project we did ourselves. That was really cool. Wow. Yeah, they were there just mainly for guidance. Yeah, and just today so that they were there mostly supervised so that it wasn't illegal. No, that's right. Yeah, we want to make sure. Yeah. But you were able to see these lamps and this, okay, okay. And so the reason this experiment was brought to our attention or to use the two sunscreen chemicals we use were oxybenzone and oxinoxate. And we use those because the legislator was trying to pass a bill at that time to ban those two chemicals in sunscreen so they wouldn't be allowed to be sold in the state. Oh, okay. Yeah. So these chemicals, so let's see some other pictures here so we can see more about what you did. So we're looking at Zahir here using a microscope with some samples. And I suppose how tiny are these organisms? So these organisms can actually be seen with the eye itself whether they're just swimming around. They look like a little piece of sand basically. Oh, okay. So tiny, tiny. Yeah. So you can see them swimming around. But the reason we were using a microscope is I needed to see one if there was settlement which is when the coral larvae attached itself to substrate or a rock or which we use a little, I guess like a little pod made out of cement by the corals. A sediment pod. Yeah. So the way it works basically is that this organism lifts on the corals and builds the coral. Yeah. And then how does it reproduce basically? Pocsapro damocorners is actually a special type of coral because it asexually reproduces its own larvae meaning that it can produce it itself. It doesn't need to have a partner. Oh, okay. So basically the larvae are released into the ocean current and then that's how basically the reefs develop. That's terrific. Okay. So let's see one of those larvae. We have, I believe we have a picture here so we can see what actually looks like, okay, so here. What are we looking at here? So this is swimming larvae. So before the larvae settles it swims around and looks for a place to settle. To settle. Okay. Okay. So these are tiny dots with yellow marks and white. They're mostly white. The species. This coral is actually more of an unhealthy side because a natural coral color would be more brownish. It depends on the species. More healthy color. It depends on the species too. Oh, okay. It depends on the species. Okay. So yeah. But the coral that we're using, a natural color would be brown and it'll take about like two weeks to settle onto like something like a substrate. So these ones over here, we counted them as unhealthy because as you can see, they're white and they have like this unhealthy color and... Oh, okay. Okay. That's terrific. And so you basically had this larvae, this swimming larvae. They move around and then we, you, what did you do as part of this project? You let them float or you, yeah. So how we went around our experiment is in the beginning itself, well, actually they weren't there for this part, so I was there at the lab and... Oh, you weren't there already. Yeah. So basically how it works is the first day was the longest day we had to be there or I'd be there because that's the day where I had to go into the lab and they had like a container full of larvae that they just produced that week. Oh, okay. So they produced the larvae. Yeah. So they have a bunch of colonies there that are set up in like farms so that they can produce their own larvae for testing themselves, right? So after they gave me that tube, I had to go through and count a total amount that we're using. So I was around 270, right? Give or take a couple... 170. Yeah. It's because it was kind of hard to count them because they were small, so I had to go and use a little... Pipet. Pipet. Yeah, I had to go pick them out. After that, what we did was we put them, actually no, we counted them and then we got these tiles. They're... They're little ceramic tiles that you can get at the hardware store. And then what we did was we applied a layer of sunscreen onto them on two tiles and then we had these plastic containers and that's where we put the two of our tiles with... I think it was 10 larvae, right? Yeah. Yeah, 10 larvae. Yeah, 10 larvae into one and that would be one containment. Now we did a 12-byte, 3-byte? 3-byte. So we had a really big experiment. We had 270 larvae in total so we had 27 cops. So all of them would have like 10 each inside. So for example, we would have a control. We had our control sunscreen one, which is Oxide-Benzhen and sunscreen two, which is Octanoxide. We had our controls and different settle times, settlement times, our exposure time, sorry, where we used one hour, six hour and 12 hours. So in total we would have... Exposure to this chemical. Yeah, exposure to the chemicals. We also did these times because that kind of replicates wave patterns and sets. So about one hour is the initial time, then six hours is between like a pattern, then 12 hours be a full day and a set. So that's how we use those different times. You know, just we're curious here at Fintech, how long did it take for you to complete this two experiment? The exposure part? Or the whole experiment? The whole experiment, because it sounds like a lot of work here that you carried out. A week? A week? A week. We started off with... Okay. We started off with... With Z was working at the exposures for the exposures and then six days afterward we just watched over time. So yeah, in total it was just seven days. Yeah, okay, okay. Let's see some more pictures so we can see more about this. Okay, so here these are... What are these? Yeah, these. These are some dying coral, so basically when coral is on its last resort, you know, trying to fight to survive, they sometimes shoot out their algae part. Oh, okay. So what you're seeing in the water, they're that white stuff. The white stuff. Yeah, the white stuff. Yeah, around the wall. They're just the stringy thing. Yeah, usually you'll see later on in our other pictures, they don't do that. Oh, okay. And that's kind of like an abandon ship type situation where they're just trying to survive. Because they were affected by the chemicals? Exactly. Oh, okay. So these are still larvae anyway, and they were not able to attach to anything. So they're just... They didn't really have anything to attach to. Okay, okay. So let's see some more pictures and we can see some... Okay. So this is a healthy larvae? That's an healthy one. Yeah, and you see this because the color is not white. It's like a light brownish. As you were mentioning, the brown down. Yeah, and in this photo, the quality is not too good, but it feels a little better. You could probably see the lines on it, which mean that it's hopefully growing and it's not in any stress. You can see some kind of stripes or more brown areas on this. It's very tiny though, as you mentioned earlier. The color and the shape was really important throughout the project because that's how we would determine if it was a healthy or unhealthy coral. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Let's see some... Okay, so this is another larvae, I believe? Yes. This is what we would basically call dead already where it's basically just swimming or it doesn't even swim around anymore, it just floats to the surface and then we would say it's exploded when all of its algae like just shoots out and then it's trying to defend itself but it can't anymore and it's just exploded. Yeah. So you mentioned how many of these tests did you carry out? How many? So we had a control, we had a control of three sets, which was because we wanted to have different trials. So you had a control, then we had a SS1, which was the first sunscreen and SS2, which is arctonarctite and we have three of each. So it was a three by three experiment. So it would be a control one hours and then there would be an A, B and C, control six hours, A, B and C, control 12 hours, A, B and C. Yeah. And then we did that for the SS4 and SS2. We had three reps. Where did you grow them? At the lab. So there was the little trailer that we worked in because they had a hard desk area. That's where we worked. And then in the main... We saw it on the picture of your lab. Yeah. So that's like the trailer we were in. And then a little bit away from that was their main building. And then that's where there's in a separate room these tanks like these large tubs that we got a little slot for to put our times in. But you have to use the microscope to check the health status of this. So the color of the tiny larvae. Not really. You could see it pretty clearly and the only reason we're using the microscope was if there was settlement we use the microscope to see how it settled because it's depending on how it settles also tells us if it's healthy or not, if it's like on its side. Because the mouth, a healthy coral settlement is supposed to be in the very center. Yeah. Okay. But if it's on the side or... Sit down. And upside down or settled where we weirdly we know it's deformed. Wow. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So we're learning here on FinTech Hawaii young talents making way about corals and what happens to them when they come in contact with chemicals. And we're doing this thanks to this bright team from Island Pacific Academy. We're going to take a break but we're going to be back soon. Stay tuned. Kids to go in. He's a service dog. Oh, I could get a vest too. You're not even a service dog. He's trained to assist his owner. Well, I can do whatever he can do. Wow. Did he just open the door? Yep. Oh, I can't do that. I can't do that either. He's trained for over two years to become a service dog. Man, I wish I could be a service dog. We're back. We're live here and young talents making way. We have here a bright award winning team from Island Pacific Academy and we're learning about what happens to the corals when they come in contact with these chemicals that we find in our sunscreen lotions and everything. So thank you for being here. Thank you. Thank you all. So what are some of your results, you know, about this project? You sampled a lot of larvae of corals. You saw what happened to them when they came in contact with these chemicals. What are your results? So for our results, our controls, they stayed fairly consistent. We did have like an unnatural drop where we had a lot of deaths and I can't remember which exposure time it was. It was in our controls. I know. Our six hours. Yeah, it was in our controls. It was in our controls six hours. Really weird because the, oh, that's really, okay. So we noticed that the controls were more alive compared to the two sunscreens, which means like the sunscreens are basically unhealthy and they're not natural. They do harm, kill, and deform the corals. But overall our coral, but we do know is that our controls looked healthier than our sunscreen. And even though there is a drop and we're not exactly sure why, sometimes it happens when you're working with live animals. Things happen. That's right. And what we mean by our controls were the, we had three batches like we explained earlier. In our control batches, that means there is nothing in the water, like chemicals, there's nothing in it just besides the corals. Yeah. And that's why it was really weird that we had a lot of dust there. So what are the most hazardous chemicals that are present in these lotions? So we used oxybenzone and octanoxate. And I think the oxybenzones, they had the most deaths overall and they bleached the coral the most, which means they lost its color. And you know coral bleaching is a really big thing. Yeah. The octanoctite was a little bit weirder because it didn't have as much death, but it had less, it made them deformed. It made them really small. Yeah. Because we saw the coral shrink. So did he accent it? Wow. Which is interesting because the oxybenzone, they didn't get smaller. They just lost their color and they died off. But the octanoxate, like we would, because it's the same size coral, right? Pretty much. Look at it and then towards the end, we were having a lot of trouble looking at it because it was so small. Yeah. It shrugged down. And that's when you had to use a microscope. Yeah. But we can all agree that the oxybenzone is probably the most horrible. Yeah. And it's found in almost every sunscreen. You carried out this science project at Island Pacific Academy, but you also presented this as part of the state science and engineering fair, the state of Hawaii science and engineering fair. And if I remember well, you also had some awards that were given to you, that were granted to you as part of this experience. How was it? What can you tell us about it? Well, I was the only one there because these two guys are on a trip. So I was just there alone, but I really enjoyed it. You were representing the team. Yes, yes, I was. I really enjoyed it because I got to see people that were interested in learning about their coral because they can relate to my life. They like going to the beach. They like going outdoors and using sunscreen. And just one of them was a NOAA judge. And then she's like, oh, that's a really good thing that you're learning about what happens to coral when it gets affected by sunscreen. So I was able to talk to them and explain to them what happens later on. And I made it to finals too. Wow. They were all just staring at me like, oh, what is she going to talk about? And then I just explained to them, oh, this is our project. And what is coral good or bad, or sorry, sunscreen, is it good or bad for the coral? And then I also talked about some sunscreens that we did find that were supposedly healthy. If you go to Costco, sometimes they sell reef safe sunscreen. And I actually bought one of them. I don't know how it affects the coral. But that's a good thing to test on too. So what should we all do? What kind of recommendations do you have for our audience in terms of trying to not burn our skis, but at the same time, don't harm the corals? Zink is a good alternative. It's safer, supposedly safer, yes. Oh, OK. But sometimes the reef safe sunscreens can be more expensive. And there aren't a lot of natural alternatives to using sunscreens that don't contain oxybenzone or octanoxate or really similar chemicals that still affect it the same way. Like you can find a bunch of different kinds. But the SPF on them wouldn't be as high as like a other brand that uses chemicals. And we also found in our research, while we were researching these chemicals, that oxybenzone has been found in bloodstreams, right, like it stays in your blood, basically. And it stays in your bloodstream after you use it. After you use it, thank you so much. And has not been completely proven, but there are looks that it can possibly cause skin cancer later in life. Oh, wow. Yeah, so long-term effects. Yeah, I just heard on the radio the other day that the legislative people did ban the sunscreens that have oxybenzone and octanoxate as their active ingredients. Yeah. Like, so the brand's like copper tone. Nitrogena. Nitrogena, yeah. Those two are, they have like higher levels of oxybenzone from our research and octanoxate. So I'm not saying that you shouldn't use sunscreen, but maybe I went to Costco and I found Alba Botanica, where it was like 100% reef safe or supposedly so. So I just recommend like maybe you guys should just go out there and maybe find something more natural. To try and protect. Just see it, yeah. And if you were wondering where you could figure out if sunscreen does have it or not, if you look at where the ingredients are, it should be under the active ingredients area and you should see how much is in it. So, take the box and behind there is the, yeah. Yeah, okay, okay. Now, so you carried out this project at the Island Pacific Academy, which was also awarded the, it was the top one in your category at the State Fair, the animal science, so we want to say this, yeah, okay. And, but you are eighth graders at Island Pacific Academy. What do you see in the future ahead of this, you know, with your experience, the science projects, what would you like to do in the future? What would you like to continue doing? I think that this project was a really great experience for all of us and that we all kind of want to go into careers in at least marine biology or something along those lines. Related to this topic, yeah, yeah, yeah. And are you going to continue with this research with corals? Are you going to go more at other science fairs? We would first have to contact our lab and, like, we would talk between ourselves because some people are moving to different schools and stuff. But we would have to contact the lab that we worked at, which was the Hawaii State Coral Restoration Nursery, and see what their schedules are and see if we can even get a time slot that we could work on future projects. But, like, our continuation projects would be, like, testing the more natural or what they call reef-safe sunscreen. So we would use that and then we would compare it to, like, maybe other natural sunscreens and things like that. Or maybe a harmful sunscreen to see what's the difference. That's going to be interesting to see, you know, different effects of other chemicals as well. The sunscreen we use was a lotion, not a spray, because if we were going to use a spray, we found it hard to get an even coating because every sunscreen title, like we said before, we put a thin coating of layer on it. And that's so we could control the amount on each thing. With a spray, we found it might be a little bit harder for us to control that. So maybe in the future we could find a way, but for now we just tested the lotions. But is there a difference between the lotions and the sprays? The spray is more oily. When you put it on your skin, you tend to have more oil compared to... And that could possibly mean because the oil and water flow to the surface. Yeah, that's why it flows to the surface. So that could have a difference maybe out in the wild, but we do not know that for sure. Because maybe the corals are below water, so maybe it doesn't really... Okay, okay. So this is a really nice conversation we're having today. Time flies, unfortunately. We have only about two minutes left for our conversation here today. What would you like to tell our audience to make them a little bit more aware of this topic and the effects that these chemicals can have on the corals? I think with this project we found a problem that people already knew of, but we proved it. And it's our job as a community to save our coral reefs and just be aware of it. And hopefully someday, whether it's us or some other scientist, we solve it and we can find an alternative. I would say to our group of audience listening, whoever, is to be a little bit more careful when you buy your sunscreens. It doesn't take that long. Just turn over the bottle or package. Just look at what's in the actual sunscreen and when you're using it and think about the effect of it having not on yourself but to the ecosystem itself. I would just say to just keep swimming but just be aware that there are other little creatures swimming around and without them, maybe we wouldn't have like poke or any like all that seafood in the water. And like we kind of, it's a Hawaiian thing where we like use our, we depend our state or some of our staples depend on the animals inside the ocean. So without our coral reefs, it could just basically ruin some traditions and things like that. So just be more aware that even though like you might enjoy something, just be aware. Emalama ikekai, take care of the ocean. Yeah. We, we, we thanks this, this brilliant and award-winning team from Island Pacific Academy. And so Aubrey Ramsparum, Zahir Golco and Emma Rose Laioen. Thank you very much for being here today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. It was great conversation and really we made content and people aware of this problem. And so we've been watching young talents making way here on Think Tech, Hawaii. I'm Andrea Gabrieli and next Tuesday we'll be back for more. Stay tuned.