BROOKINGS — Is science your forté? Well, it is for these students.
Five Brookings students won the South Dakota Regional Science Bowl in February, earning an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C., to compete at the national tournament sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Sixty-eight teams came from 46 states, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico to compete at the national level the first weekend of May. There were also 48 middle school teams who competed in their own division nationally.
Seniors Joseph Michna, Waylon Lowe, Quinton Zhu — along with junior Shaurya Sehgal and sophomore Catie Michna — represented Brookings High School at the regional tournament in Huron in February sponsored by the Western Area Power Administration. Ronda Kantack, BHS Quiz Bowl adviser, was their coach and traveled to both competitions with the students. They earned the title of regional champions to moved on to the national tournament.
The team’s national trip began at 5 a.m. on a Thursday morning as they were all picked up to make their 7:30 a.m. flight out of Sioux Falls. After a day of travel, they were treated to an evening touring the Udvar-Hazy National Air and Space Museum just outside of D.C. The next day, the high school students attended various Department of Energy presentations by National Laboratory personnel. Then the teams all competed in a Design Team Challenge, which was a lab experiment that would be graded and used to break any ties for the Science Bowl competition. The Brookings team was the top team in their eight-team division on the lab experiment challenge.
Then, on a Saturday, all the high school teams were bussed to the National Mall in D.C. to tour various museums and memorials. Sunday was the national tournament, where the Brookings team placed sixth in their bracket, missing the fourth place they needed to advance to the double elimination tournament. Monday brought the Science Bowl finals in D.C. and a long day traveling home.
The Brookings students and coach thoroughly enjoyed their trip to the National Science Bowl and reported the following highlights of their trip:
• Joseph – Hanging out with students from other states and getting to know my team better.
• Waylon – Competing in the Design Team Challenge and visiting the Natural History museum.
• Quinton – Competing and watching other teams compete and visiting the Natural History museum.
• Shaurya – Bonding with the other teams who are just as interested in science as we are and learning from them. I also enjoyed visiting many of the monuments at the National Mall.
• Catie – Walking around to all of the monuments at the National Mall. It was so pretty. Also, experiencing a real application of science and math in the Design Team Challenge.
Brookings High School can be very proud of the students who represented them at the National Science Bowl tournament. Let’s hope more Brookings students will compete in the future.
Leave a Reply