by Donna Iadipaolo
A TEAM OF high school students from Ann Arbor recently won the regional competition for the 2015 National Science Bowl® (NSB) and will next compete at the National Finals in Washington D.C. at the end of April.
Greenhills High School Seniors—Alex Reeves, Jackie Stokes, Frank Fazekas, Tanwei Chen, and Nathan Joss, all led by coach and science teacher Bob Ause—are preparing to travel to the national competition, which will be held from April 30 to May 4.
“The National Science Bowl® has grown into one of the most prestigious science academic competitions in the country and challenges students to excel in fields vital to America’s future,” said U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. “I congratulate these students for advancing to the National Finals, where they will be among some of the brightest science and math students from across the country.”
The NSB includes thousands of middle and high school students from all around the nation to compete in a fast-paced question-and-answer format where students solve problems and answer questions on a range of topics that include mathematics, earth science, physics, space science, biology, and chemistry.
Greenhills High School’s science bowl team only recently began.
“Two years ago, four students approached me to sponsor a National Science Bowl team at Greenhills,” said science teacher Bob Ause. “I agreed, and last year was our first year.”
Ause primarily teaches chemistry at Greenhills and serves as the science department chair. He graduated from Greenhills in 1981 and has been teaching there since 2010.
The coach said the students have been working hard in their free time to prepare for NSB.
“The team practices once a week at lunch on Fridays,” said Ause. “Practice consists of practicing with past questions, using the buzzer system, and occasionally students will make a presentation on a topic for all teammates to learn.”
He added that his team is successful because the members are very knowledgeable, think quickly, and have a great “buzzing strategy.”
“Students in NSB enjoy a competitive academic quiz game,” said Ause. “They learn a lot of facts about various sciences and energy. They have fun in the inter-team competition as well.”
Ause added both he and the students are looking forward to their trip to D.C.
“The level of challenge and competition at the national level is amazing,” said Ause. “We hear presentations about scientific research conducted by various scientists working around the U.S. at various Department of Energy sites, and we get to tour D.C.”
While Greenhills does not have a middle school team, many schools do, and to form a science bowl middle school or high school team is not as difficult as it may seem.
“To start a team, find a handful of interested science students, familiarize your team with the rules, start quizzing each other, and practice buzzing strategies,” explained Ause. “There are teams at Huron, Dexter and Plymouth high schools.”
Jackie Stokes is one of Greenhills’s NSB team members. Next year, she will be attending The University of Pennsylvania, an Ivy League college. She loves the diversity of science topics covered during science bowl.
“I initially participated in the National Ocean Science Bowl team and my friends on the team made me aware that they were starting a National Science Bowl team,” said Stokes. “I jumped at the chance because National Science Bowl covers a much larger array of topics than the ocean science bowl. It allows us as students to focus on the specific science we enjoy instead of the smaller topic of ocean science. For me, that means I focus on chemistry, biology, and anatomy, while some of the other guys focus on physics and astronomy.”
Stokes was not one of students who initially approached Ause to start the team. Boys on the team reached out to Stokes to join.
“No actually, the guys approached Mr. Ause first and then made me aware of the club,” said Stokes. “The boys on the team specifically, Frank, Alex and Tanwei, wanted desperately to have a National Science Bowl team. They did all of the work, figured out when the competition was, how to practice, when to practice and then after they had organized everything they approached Mr. Ause to be our mentor.”
Stokes admitted that more girls and women need to be active in science. She is the only female on her team.
“The gender discrepancy at science competitions is unfortunately very obvious,” said Stokes. “The guys are very nice about always including me and our larger team from Greenhills has a lot of girls, however it is always frustrating to see so few females at the competition. I would encourage every girl who has any interest in science to join the team. Women are just as smart as men in technical fields and I believe we need to represent in all of the science competitions.”
She added that NSB motivates her to engage more in science.
“The competition is an excellent way for me to push myself to widen my knowledge of the sciences,” said Stokes. “It is also a fantastic opportunity to meet like-minded students who have a deep interest in the sciences.”
The students’ thrill of victory in winning the regional completion and advancing to nationals is also obvious.
“I was ecstatic,” said Stokes. “This will be our second year competing and our second regional win. It was really special for me because I was supposed to be the fifth member of the winning team last year, but was sick the day of the competition and therefore could not support my team by being there. This year felt like my comeback and it felt great to have a nice solid win.”
Stokes said the secret to being a winning NSB team is almost to eat, breath, and sleep scientifically.
“All lot of the boys on the team are ridiculously dedicated to the program,” said Stokes. “All lot of our free time is spent reading science textbooks. Something that sets us apart from the other teams is that we also spend a significant amount of time practicing buzzing, and talking about competition strategies. However, I think it was truly our will to win and commitment to the group that allowed us to come out on top.”
With the national competition right around the corner, the team has increased its prep time even more.
“We have definitely upped the ante on practicing,” said Stokes. “We tend to practice buzzing multiple days a week now instead of just one. We also picked a topic that we are not as a team as knowledgable about to study up on. I am currently studying anatomy and physiology outside of school for the competition. We are devoting more of our lunch times and extra time towards learning new topics in an effort to be prepared as possible for the competition. The other Greenhills teams have been really helpful. They come at lunch too and help us buzz, study, et cetera.”
A series of 118 regional middle school and high school tournaments were held across the country between January and March.
The top 16 high school teams and the top eight middle school teams in the National Finals will win $1,000 for their schools’ science departments. Prizes for the top two high school teams for the 2015 NSB will be announced at a later date.
The high school team that won the 2014 NSB received a nine-day, all-expenses-paid science trip to Alaska, where they learned more about glaciology, marine and avian biology, geology and plate tectonics. The second-place high school team at the 2014 NSB won a five-day, fully-guided adventure tour of several national parks, which included a whitewater rafting trip.
Approximately 240,000 students have participated in the National Science Bowl® since it was established in 1991, and it is one of the nation’s largest science competitions. More than 14,000 students compete in the NSB each year.
DOE’s Office of Science manages the NSB Finals competition. More information is available on the NSB website: http://www.science.energy.gov/wdts/nsb/.