AHS Science Bowl Advances to Nationals

AHS+Science+Bowl+team+comes+in+first+for+regional+competition%2C+qualifying+for+the+national+championship+in+Washington+D.C.+%0ATop+left%3A+coach+Ms.+Cherryl+Mynster%2C+Sonia+Zhang%2C+Jeshwanth+Mohan+%0ABottom+left%3A+Selena+Zhang%2C+Xing+Liu%2C+and+Brian+Lam

AHS Science Bowl team comes in first for regional competition, qualifying for the national championship in Washington D.C. Top left: coach Ms. Cherryl Mynster, Sonia Zhang, Jeshwanth Mohan Bottom left: Selena Zhang, Xing Liu, and Brian Lam

Aahana Dutta, Staff Writer

The Arcadia High School (AHS) Science Bowl, won the regional contest hosted by Jet Propulsion Laboratory  (JPL) on Jan. 22. This marks AHS’ eighth victory since the tournament first began, and AHS’ Science Bowl team will be advancing and competing at the national level in Washington, D.C. 

The National Science Bowl (NSB) was established in 1991 as a highly competitive tournament. It is a competition that focuses on science and mathematics. Both middle school and high school student teams compete, and each team has a coach who helps them with their preparation for the tournament. The Science Bowl team who qualified includes Brian Lam, Xing Liu, Jeshwanth Mohan, Sonia Zhang, Selena Zheng. They were coached by Ms. Cherryl Mynster. 

The students are tested in a question-and-answer format which is really fast-paced. The topics tested cover math, chemistry, earth science, biology, physics, and energy. The tournament begins in January and approximately 50 middle schools and 65 high schools compete (5,000 middle school students and 9,000 high school students). The NSB is one of the largest science competitions in the U.S. 

This year, 22 teams competed in the region competition with AHS coming first, San Gabriel Valley High School coming second, and Troy High School coming third. The last time AHS won was in 2015. 

For junior Xing Liu, his experience in the Science Bowl team has been a rollercoaster ride! 

 “I joined the team last summer at the suggestion of my friends who were already there. My initial experience was a bit terrifying, as I was completely alien to Science Bowl’s incredibly intense format, having hitherto only been accustomed to the relative calm of Science Olympiad and Physics Team’s hour-long tests. In the beginning, I wasn’t particularly good at Science Bowl, often hastily interrupting questions, which lead to a point deduction if answered incorrectly, and boy, I answered a lot of them incorrectly. And I was afraid to tackle math problems because others can solve them faster. These early stumbles showed me that avid interest in the sciences is not the only component one needs in the team: a mastery of the format, eager play, and teamwork are all crucial to succeeding at Science Bowl,” he said.

For Liu, it was all about sticking with the team and trying his hardest that helped him gain the experience to compete in the tournament. But it wasn’t easy!

“My schoolwork only increased after January 3rd, and the past three weeks of nighttime extracurricular studying had been, should I say, absolutely treasonous for my PowerSchool grades. We were preparing for every worst fear that could’ve occurred at regionals: linear algebra, special relativity, the Krebs Cycle, and by far the most haunting: questions on electromagnetism. Weirdly enough, none of these topics came up in much force last Saturday, though I’m glad we still learned them: nationals might be much worse,” said Liu. 

As for senior Sonia Zhang, her journey so far was very fun and helped her make new friends. 

“I really really enjoyed competing and preparing with this team. We had a lot of practices, which helped out a lot with both getting good at the format of the competition and also developing our team chemistry. Everyone is really fun to be around, and we’re able to mess around but also learn a lot together and from each other. The competition was also a good fun experience,” said Zhang.

Talking about the tournament, she explained how “the rounds started off pretty easy, but since they were easy, we really tried to focus on accuracy since we all tend to make silly mistakes. But as the rounds progressed, the questions started getting quite difficult, and it got pretty intense and really took a lot of focus to keep our game at the peak. Also, every round was super, super close. I think except for the second round where we really dominated the scores, the differences in the score were pretty much 1 or 2 questions.”

Lastly, senior Brian Lam really enjoys being on the team. 

“Science Bowl is one of the most chill, yet most fun teams on campus. It is always fun to race against other people and reinforce your knowledge by answering questions of varying difficulty amongst all the major fields of science (biology, chemistry, physics, earth, and space). Meetings after school on Fridays are especially interesting since everyone is getting ready for the weekend and meetings become a relaxed, wind-down atmosphere of laughter along with serious discussions about Lorentz contractions and supernovae. That is also the coolest part of the team: working with other people who are equally as educated and passionate about science. There are a lot of people who I would not have talked to otherwise who are on the team, but that I now talk to on a regular basis,” said Lam. 

Lastly, Ms. Mynster said, “Coaching Science Bowl is awesome. The students are amazing and have a passion for learning.  We all learn from each other and share some laughs.  I really enjoy listening to the team discuss their thought process as they collaborate with each other and then celebrate upon determining the correct answer.  Science Bowl really gives students an opportunity to collaborate with their fellow science enthusiasts in an exciting, fun forum where they can show off their knowledge, stretch their problem solving and critical thinking skills, and let their love of the sciences along with the thrill of competition fuel their adrenaline.”

Even though the tournament was not easy at all, our team did fabulously! Congratulations to AHS Science Bowl team, and good luck competing in Washington, D.C!

 

Photo by AHS Science Bowl Team