Congratulations to the inaugural National Science Bowl team from Seminole Ridge High. SECME students Kayleigh Previte, Ralph Regis, Zack Wiggin, and Robert Botkin drove down to Miami to compete in the regional match of the US Department of Energy NSB!
We lost in overtime on a technical foul -- our team's captain buzzed in fastest on the tossup question but responded to the question without first being recognized by the judge, so the team from Ft. Myers got the win from penalty points. The regional was double elimination. In the next match, the team from Plantation had, in the words of Zack, "ninja-fast reflexes." We knew the answers, but the other team beat us to the buzzer. If only we had had one more practice round to familiarize ourselves with the lock-out buzzer system.
Let's see: this is a simple tool to measure your reaction time with. The median reaction time is 215 milliseconds so far.
THE GOOD NEWS: Paeans of praise
"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
- Theodore Roosevelt, "Man in the Arena" Speech given April 23, 1910
26th president of US (1858 - 1919)
THE BAD NEWS: We still lost.
THE OTHER GOOD NEWS: Just wait until the Brain Bowl at SECME Regionals on April 10th.
The U.S. Department of Energy National Science Bowl encourages high school students to excel in math and science. By raising the visibility of academic achievement in math and science, the program has succeeded in placing young people on par with their peers who excel in athletics. The Science Bowl is a fast-paced, exciting, and challenging competition.
DOE has partnered with SHPE and AHETEMS to bring this enriching competition to Hispanic serving areas across the country. The SHPE Regional Science Bowls engage Hispanic middle school and high school students in an enriching, challenging and competitive environment to motivate and heighten their interest in math and science. The competition is an intense and fun "Jeopardy"-style round-robin session preceding a double-elimination tournament. Teams, composed of four competitors and an alternate, are challenged to answer a range of multiple-choice and short answer questions in math, chemistry, biology, physics, astronomy, earth science and general science.
The winning team - participants and coach - from the SHPE Regional Science Bowls receives an invitation consisting of a complementary 4-day trip, to compete at the U.S. Department of Energy National Science Bowl, hosted in Washington DC.
As SHPE and AHETEMS continue to serve the needs of the Hispanic community and be a resource for the educational advancement and sucees of Latino youth, teams participating in the SHPE-sponsored Regional Science Bowls should strive to have at least 50% Hispanic participation (2-of-4, or 3-of-5). By increasing access to this competition, SHPE hopes to help inspire Hispanic youth see science, math and engineering as an exciting, challenging and fun career with lots of opportunties
