A staple project of one George Washington High School teacher's curriculum has collected decades-worth of data and has proven to be a fun learning experience for students long past graduation.

In the digital age, long gone are the days of messages in a bottle - or at least that's what Guam Community College student Chloe Weilbacher thought. "Nobody sends stuff like that anymore," she said.

Four years ago, she sent a message in a bottle - all part of her high school project to learn about ocean currents. "Because we're learning about currents and how it's basically like a conveyer belt and it goes around the ocean," she said.  Long forgotten was her project, until recently when she received a message from the Philippines.

"They reached out to me on Facebook. And they're like, 'We found your bottle! Here's a picture.' I thought it was really cool. It actually made my day," she proclaimed.

While she's retired from the classroom, Marine Biology teacher Linda Tatreau is thrilled to know the learning continues. "We sent out about 140-bottles every year and we got information back probably oh 20 of those years," she explained. "So we have the north equatorial current coming in from the east passing Guam and heading to the west towards the Philippines, and a vast majority of our bottles did end up in the Philippines. We've had a few go south of the equator, a few ended up in Indonesia and we got a response from Papua New Guinea, and that's a total surprise. Caught in a storm? We have no idea."

Chloe's bottle, she says, set a record.  "The soonest a bottle was found was three months and the longest we've ever had was four years, and that was Chloe. And to show how things have changed when we started this in 1991, it was on post cards and we'd give our address and have them give a stamp. And now the person that found Chloe's bottle found us via Facebook," she stated.

If you're going to try the project, Tatreau urges you be environmentally conscious - no plastic bottles or labels. Glass bottles sealed with cork only. And most importantly, you must throw the bottle at least 12 miles off shore. "If you can do that it's a marvelous project. Do it at the beginning of the year so you can get responses by the end of the year," she encouraged.