At the end of the day, the team from Longfellow Middle School, Falls Church, won the Virginia Regional Middle School Science Bowl on March 7. The team of (back row, left to right) Coach Jim Bradford, Fred Zhang and Benjamin Xu, and (front, l. to r.) Christopher Bi, Wenbo Wu and Aaditya Singh pose for a photo with Beau Tyler, the 2015 Virginia Science Bowl mascot.
NEWPORT NEWS, Va. – Despite snow, sleet and freezing rain all 14 schools registered to participate in the Virginia Regional Middle School Science Bowl made it to the event at Jefferson Lab on March 7.
At the end of the day Longfellow Middle School, Falls Church, prevailed and will represent Virginia at the National Science Bowl finals to be held in Washington, D.C., April 30-May 4.
The day kicked off with Jefferson Lab Director Hugh Montgomery welcoming the students, their coaches and many of the students’ family members in the CEBAF Center auditorium. “Math and science is both important and fun,” he commented. And that it helps us “understand how our world works makes it even more amazing.” He was delighted to see so many excited young faces, and he acknowledged the importance of the many parents in the audience as well as teachers and coaches for encouraging their students and providing that beginning spark of interest for science and math.
The teams spent the morning in a series of fast-paced round robin matches before all 14 teams progressed to the double-elimination finals. In Round 4, Longfellow fell to Nysmith School for the Gifted, Herndon. However, Longfellow went on to win its matches in the (single-loss) Challengers’ Bracket and at the end of the day faced off against Rachel Carson Middle School, Herndon, who made it undefeated through Round 6 in the No-Loss Bracket. While RCMS was leading at the half, Longfellow pulled ahead in the second half and won 92-68, and forcing the two teams into one final match for the day.
Questions covered topics ranging from mathematics and general science to physical science, Earth and space, life science and energy. Longfellow won its second match with RCMS, 104-92
The Longfellow team, coached by Jim Bradford, took home a $750 check for its school, a team trophy, individual medals and the regional banner that the team will carry to nationals, in addition to earning a place in the Washington, D.C., National Finals.
As runner-up, the RCMS team, coached by Rajani Kopparapu took home a $500 check for its school and a team trophy.
Finishing in third and fourth places respectively were Nysmith, coached by Venkata Allamsetty and Kilmer Middle School, Vienna, coached by Jeffrey Liu. Third place won a $300 check for its school and a team trophy and fourth place received a team trophy.
Several teams, eliminated from competition earlier in the day, stayed for the afternoon and participated in an event dubbed the Stay All Day Contest. Teams took part in three activities, each one presenting a different type of design or engineering challenge. Different challenges are presented each year. Individual prizes were presented to the individuals of the overall Stay All Day winning team, as well as to the team members earning the highest scores in each activity.
St. John the Apostle Catholic School, Virginia Beach, coached by Adam Ratte’, won the event with the highest combined score. The team earned a $300 check for its school.
At the awards presentations, Jan Tyler, Jefferson Lab's Science Education manager and Science Bowl coordinator, congratulated the teams – the students and their coaches. She acknowledged and applauded their hard work and tenacity in preparing for the competition. She also thanked lab management for its support in hosting the event and to the dozens of volunteers – lab staff, their family members, and friends of the Science Bowl program – who helped conduct the matches and run the event.
The Department of Energy created the National Science Bowl in 1991 to encourage students to excel in mathematics and science and to pursue careers in these fields. The National Science Bowl program is the nation's largest science competition. DOE's Office of Science manages the program and sponsors the NSB finals.
 The team from Rachel Carson Middle School, Herndon, finished in second place at the Virginia Regional Middle School Science Bowl on March 7. Pictured is the RCMS team: (back row, left to right) Coach Rajani Kopparapu, Kevin Wang and Nishanth Anand, and (front, l. to r.) Neeyanth Kopparapu, Jacob Fajer and Richard Wang. They are accompanied by assistant coaches. |
 The team from Nysmith School for the Gifted, Herndon, finished in third place. Pictured are (back row, left to right) Anusha Allamsetty, Coach Venkata Allamsetty and Shaan Bhandarkar, and (front, l. to r.) Vaibhav Sharma, Abhishek Allamsetty and Ajit Kadaveru. |
 The team from Kilmer Middle School, Vienna, finished in fourth place. Pictured are (back row, left to right) Justin Han, Coach Jeffrey Liu and Alexander Liu, and (front, l. to r.) Christopher Yuan, Dan Ni and David Chen. |
 The team from St. John the Apostle Catholic School, Virginia Beach won the Stay All Day design and engineering challenge contest. Pictured are (back row, left to right) Ethan Giarrana and Coach Adam Ratte’, and (front, l. to r.) Hayley Mayette, Alexandra Gronski and Madeline Gonsalves. ). Joining the team is Beau Tyler, the 2015 Virginia Science Bowl mascot. |