Faith Lutheran Middle School’s Science Bowl Team heads to Nevada Regional competition
Blue team members, Jordan Pulse, Blake Cheater, Trevor Barrett, and Aden Jaeger debate an answer at their practice. They discuss possible results of the question asked.
February 29, 2016
On March 6, the Faith Lutheran Middle School Science Bowl team will compete at Henderson International Middle School. They will compete against other middle schools for the title of Regional Champion and the opportunity to advance to the national competition in Washington, D.C.
The Science Bowl Program involves academic questions related to physical science, life science, earth science, space science, and math. The students who tryout for the team are placed onto either the blue, green, or orange team to represent Faith Lutheran Middle School at the Science bowl competition. Each team contains five middle school students. All of the teams are advised by Middle School Science Bowl Coach Mrs. Brenda Beery.
Although Beery coaches and prepares all of the teams, some student have taken the liberty of studying on their own.
“I’m just studying scientific texts related to the topic and practicing with the buzzers and talking with my teammates,” said seventh grade student and member of the blue team, Aden Jaeger.
Although members from the science bowl team have spent time preparing, some new additions to the team seem nervousfor the competition.
“I’m a little nervous because I’ve never done it before,” said seventh grade student and member of the green team Ava Ballagh.
Every science bowl team uses a strategy to help them to have a greater chance of performing successfully. Each member of the team is assigned a particular science to help the team. They specialize in that area. They also can contribute knowledge in the topic to benefit their team.
“Chad (Sherf) is in charge of math, Trevor (Barrett) is physical science, and Aden and I are probably going to be earth science,” said seventh grade student and member of the blue team Blake Cheater.
The Middle School Science Bowl team has helped students to broaden their knowledge in the topics they have practiced.
“I have improved on eighth grade physical science while being a part of the science bowl team,” said Ballagh.
The Faith Lutheran Science Bowl teams have a reputation of performing well at the competition in previous years.
“Our science bowl teams have done really well in the past. We usually have one or two of our three teams that we’ve entered make it to the final competition.
I think there has been only one year since 2008 that we haven’t had a team in the final one,” said Beery.
Each year, the State Champion earns a prize for winning the competition. According to Beery, the winner of the state competition is awarded 1,000 dollars for the middle school Science department and an all expense paid trip to Washington DC, where the national competition will take place.
In 2009 and 2012, the Middle School Science Bowl team advanced to the National competition, but didn’t place. The teams competing in the National Com- petition compete in a round robin competition first. In the round robin, a group of teams compete against each other. The top two of the round robin will then advance to the final round. The competitions from around the nation were a step up from the state competition.
“They were incredibly fast and the questions were at a higher level,” said Beery.
This year, the Science Bowl Team will compete at Henderson International Middle School at 1165 Sandy Ridge Avenue.
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