What you need to know:
- Science Club brought back a past annual tradition of the student-teacher Science Bowl match on Nov. 22.
- Science Bowl team members and various STEM teachers competed in a buzzer-style competition, where the student team won with a score of 188-50.
- Despite COVID-19 halting the tradition, Science Club hopes to expand and allow general Science Club members to participate.
Reviving a past annual tradition, Science Club hosted a student-teacher Science Bowl match on Nov. 22 during lunch. In the theater with chattering spectators and playful banter, Science Bowl members competed onstage in a buzzer-style competition against science and math teachers, testing a variety of STEM topics. After the tough match, the students were victorious with a score of 188-50.
For the first half of the match, the students’ team consisted of sophomore Ian Chen, junior Sohil Rathi, senior Jianyu Wang and senior and Science Club co-president Selena Yang. On the teachers’ team were biology teacher Nicole Della Santina, calculus teacher Jeremy Dybdahl, chemistry teacher Lester Leung and physics teacher Thanh Nguyen.
The match began with a 4-point toss-up question from the earth and space science category. The students’ team buzzed in first, answering the question correctly, and were given the chance to answer the next 10-point bonus question. All questions fell into the conventional Science Bowl categories: biology, chemistry, earth and space science, energy, physics and mathematics.
“Science Bowl is a fun competition in general,” junior and Science Bowl participant Sohil Rathi said. “It’s a lot more engaging than just taking a test like other STEM competitions. It was interesting competing against Mr. Leung since he’s the one who usually coaches us.”
The teams battled through the following questions, occasionally scoring bonus questions for their respective teams. By the end of the first half, the students’ team, leading 104-24, subbed in sophomore Ryan Bansal and senior Steve Yang. The teacher team decided to add another member on stage, physics teacher Anshul Agarwal, to fight against the students’ massive lead.
“The students buzzed in very quickly and knew many of the answers before the questions were even finished,” Dybdahl said. “It was amazing, and we were humbled.”
Even with the competitive atmosphere, the participants laughed off mistakes, and the teachers’ animated reactions throughout the competition filled the auditorium with laughter. Finishing the final toss-up and bonus questions, the student team ended with an impressive 138-point lead, winning in a landslide.
“It took a little longer than expected and we didn’t get to finish the round,” Selena Yang said. “But it was still fun, which was our main goal.”
Previously an annual Science Club tradition, the student-teacher Science Bowl was held consistently each year despite switching between various locations and advisers. However, the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic forced the club to cancel the matches. Selena Yang and senior and co-president Audrey Na decided to bring back this old tradition.
“We thought members and officers would have a ton of fun participating in or watching the competition,” Na said.
Planning began at the start of the school year. Though none of its current officer team participated in the event before its cancellation, they were able to delegate tasks and sort out logistics. At a table before the contestants, junior Evan Liu, senior Thomas Wu and club adviser Kathleen Loia supervised the event, reading out questions and calling on those who buzzed.
Signups for the student team were open to the official Science Bowl team, both as an opportunity to face off against their own teachers in the fast-paced environment and to practice for future in-person tournaments. Competing on a stage in the auditorium and before a live audience added to the realism of the matches.
To form the teacher team, Science Club officers approached different science and math teachers about joining.
“It was nice that we got to see the Science Bowl team in their element and watch the teachers in a setting we don’t usually see them in,” Na said.
Following the successful revival of the student-teacher Science Bowl, Science Club officers hope to bring this back as an annual event and implement some new changes in the coming years. Additionally, they hope to work on providing more promotions, such as sharing Instagram posts and sending out flyers, for future iterations.
“In the future, we hope to expand and open the competition up to all Science Club members to even out the playing field,” Na said.
Among the club’s different activities and competitions, this event was more lighthearted and built bonds between students and teachers.
“It’s always fun and the students usually destroy the teachers,” Loia said. “When I participated, I learned that reflexes matter and the teachers often don’t press the button fast enough.”
