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A team of San Ramon middle school students from Windemere Ranch will be heading to Washington D.C. in April for the National Science Bowl finals, after winning the state regionals earlier this winter.
The National Science Bowl is an annual event sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Throughout the various rounds, over 14,000 students from middle and high school teams compete against one other in answering questions on a range of scientific disciplines.
“The National Science Bowl continues to be one of the premier academic competitions across the country and prepares America’s students for future successes in some of the world’s fastest growing fields in science, technology, and engineering,” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry in a statement.
“I am honored to congratulate Windemere Ranch Middle School in advancing to the National Finals, where they will continue to showcase their talents as the top minds in math and science,” he added.
The winning Windemere Ranch team consisted of five students — students who had endured through elimination rounds even before the regional competition.
Science bowl coaches held two written test try-outs, one in May and the other in August, said Sharad Nair, whose two sons both went through science bowl. He has served as a science bowl coach for the past six years, but this was the first time one of his teams would go to nationals. Kimberly Hansell, a Windemere Ranch science teacher, also served as a coach this year.
This past year, they held a try-out in May for sixth- and seventh-graders, and another try-out in the fall just for incoming sixth-graders.
Over 100 students typically try out for the science bowl team, Nair said, and coaches spend the next few months holding practices and whittling the student pool down until by October or November only 12 students are left — enough for two six-student teams consisting of five competitors and one alternate.
Each participating school’s top “A” team are all given a slot at regionals, and then if there are any open space two weeks before the competition date, a school’s “B” team may be permitted to compete.
One of the challenges with preparing for the science bowl, Nair said, is the wide range of questions.
“My strategy has been to pick an expert in each subject,” he said. Specifically, the subjects include biology, chemistry, Earth and space science, physics and math.
After the teams were selected, they practiced at least once a week — going over the science, but also learning to work together as a team.
“A lot of these kids, they’re great individual contestants, really motivated and driven,” Nair said.
Teamwork, however, takes time to develop. Through practice sessions, they learned each others’ strengths and weaknesses, and coaches guided them in supporting one another, even through mistakes.
“I think that we’ve practiced together for a really long time now,” said Venkat “Venky” Ranjan, an eighth grader on the team. “We don’t just memorize questions and do science, we have fun.”
Contra Costa County regionals were held Jan. 27 at Las Positas College, with 24 schools participating. The teams were divided up into four brackets for a round robin style competition in the morning, with top teams moving on to an elimination tourney in the afternoon.
The team said they felt well-prepared at regionals.
“I was really proud to see the team come together,” Nair said. “They were truly discussing the options at a very high level. Given that you only have 20 seconds, it takes a lot of maturity.”
He was particularly proud of a moment when the team’s life science student expert challenged the moderator on a question about plant tissue systems — and won the challenge.
“It takes a lot of confidence to be able to do that,” he added.
This was Gargee Piplani’s first time participating in science bowl. She served as the earth science expert on the team, a focus sparked by an early “passion in learning about our world,” she said.
“I find it really interesting to learn about our earth as a system and how the different parts make up a whole,” she said.
She’s looking forward to competing in nationals and pursuing science in her future, perhaps in the space exploration realm at NASA or SpaceX.
“I’d really like to share that there is very little female representation in science,” Piplani said. “I’m the only girl on our team. And I’d like to inspire more females to join science.”
This year’s National Science Bowl finals will take place on April 26-30. The top 16 high school and middle school teams, respectively, will each win $1,000 for their schools’ science departments.
