WATERBORO — When Kerra Gearinger was told at the beginning of the month that she had won an award in recognition of her teaching, she was surprised – mostly because she didn’t even know she was in the running for any award at all.

Last year, Gearinger – who teaches oceanography and marine biology, as well as chemistry, physics and astronomy, at Massabesic High School – had each of her 24 oceanography students submit work to From the Bow Seat’s annual Ocean Awareness Student Contest as part of their course final.

The contest, in its fifth year, challenges middle and high school students worldwide to advocate for ocean conservation through art, poetry, prose or film. Contestants in this year’s contest were asked to draw attention specifically to the pollution of oceans with plastics. From the Bow Seat, a nonprofit that strives for international ocean conservation, will give out more than $50,000 in prizes to the winners of this year’s contest, according to a recent press release from the organization.

Although none of Gearinger’s students won prizes, the 29-year-old teacher was one of 12 educators across the country recognized with awards in this year’s contest. (Other award winners from Maine in the 2015 Ocean Awareness Student Contest include Jess Baxter, a language arts teacher at York Middle School, eight York Middle School students, a middle school student from Farmington, and high school students from Portland, Freeport and Auburn.)

“I think it brought awareness to the need for some sort of management when it comes to recycling or awareness of what goes on here locally,” Gearinger said Thursday, when asked what her students learned from participating in the contest. “We’re in Maine, we’re in a state where the livelihood of a lot of our community depends on the ocean. So for me it was the bigger picture. … This is going on right outside our school, right outside our community, and we need to be aware of this.”

Gearinger said last year was the first time she had her students participate in the contest, which she stumbled upon while researching ocean plastics pollution online, and she plans to have her current marine biology class participate in next year’s contest, which opens next month and runs through June. She said she likes how the contest lets students learn through doing and by being creative rather than by just reading a textbook or taking an exam.

“I have a lot of really creative students, so it was nice because they were able to let that shine through, and in the same sense, it was part of their final, they were graded on it,” she said. “But it wasn’t the standard, ‘Here’s the whole year of oceanography, now take a final on it.’ It was the bigger picture.”

Gearinger, who lives in Shapleigh, moved to the area from Pennsylvania 11 years ago to study marine biology at the University of New England. But after graduating, the field proved a hard one to break into with the exception of “packing up and moving to Florida,” she said.

So she went on earn her master’s degree in education because teaching, she thought, would be the best way to share her knowledge with future generations and “bring awareness to the world around us.”

Gearinger said the most rewarding part of teaching is building relationships with students and being able to become a role model for them. “I have some awesome relationships with my kiddos,” she said.

— Staff Writer Angelo J. Verzoni can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 329 or averzoni@journaltribune.com.