For the third year in a row, University High School earned first place at the Science Bowl Regionals on January 25. This annual U.S. Department of Energy competition, hosted by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, is a Jeopardy-style competition meant to test students’ science knowledge.
Coach David Knight’s team at University High includes Nyle Wong, James Chen, Nicholas Ouyang, Alissa Kopylova and Robert Ni. They competed against 23 other schools from the Southern California area. Working at lightning fast speed, they excelled at answering questions ranging on topics concerning math, physics, chemistry, biology and more.
According to the team captain Nyle Wong, the team has been preparing for months. He said, “At practices there is a lot of studying. Each week, we all work together as a team to study and practice our speed with the buzzer.”
Team member, Nick Ouyang said his favorite part about competing is representing University High School and challenging himself against other schools. Nick said “Going to the competition is exciting because you don’t know anything about your opponent.” In other words, you have to be ready for anything.
After nine rounds of competition, the team won the title and will now go on to represent IUSD at the national competition this April in Washington, D.C.