Preston Middle School team advances to National Science Bowl for 5th time in 6 years

Kelly Lyell, Fort Collins Coloradoan
·3 min read
Members of Preston Middle School's National Science Bowl team that won the Colorado regional championship to advance to the national competition show off their championship banner at the school Wednesday. Pictured, from left to right, are coach Tyler Cloud, team members Samer Abdo, Eli Rauscher, Ella Wang, Evan Mainz, Alex Wang and school principal Amy Kirby.

A team from Preston Middle School in Fort Collins won the state and regional championship for the second year and is headed to the National Science Bowl next month in Washington, D.C.

Preston’s team of Ella Wang, Evan Mainz, Alex Wang, Eli Rauscher and Samer Abdo will represent Colorado, which is its own region, in the national competition April 25-29.

The U.S. Department of Energy sponsors the annual competition and provides regional champion teams and their coaches with a five-day, expenses-paid trip to Washington. In addition to the competition, the five students from Preston and their coach, Tyler Cloud, will participate in several days of science activities and sightseeing, organizers said in a news release. Those activities include a daylong tour of the National Mall and a special nighttime opportunity to explore the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, said Logan Burke, Preston's Science Bowl adviser.

Preston teams have won the Colorado middle schools regional title five times in the past six years and won the national competition that was held virtually in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Burke said. Ella Wang was on the Preston team that went to nationals last year. The regional competition for Colorado high school teams, won by a team from Fossil Ridge last year, is Saturday, March 9, at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

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“Every year this ‘competition like no other’ brings together some of the most remarkable and inspiring students from across America,” DOE Office of Science Director Asmeret Asefaw Berhe said in the news release.

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 those fields,” the competition’s website reads.

Teams face off in a fast-paced format answering questions about a wide range of science disciplines, including biology, chemistry, Earth Science, physics, energy and math.

“We call it team Jeopardy,” said Burke, now in her 11th year as Preston’s Science Bowl adviser. “There’s five kids on a team, and they’ll compete on buzzers. The first one to buzz in answers each question, and if they’re right, they get a bonus question that the whole team can discuss before answering.

“You have to be super quick.”

Questions can be about anything related to science, she said, from rocks and minerals, to astronomy to cell biology.

“Anything goes,” she said.

More than 344,000 students, including about 10,000 this year, have participated in the event since its establishment. There were 65 high school and 50 middle school regional competitions this year.

The top five teams in the National Science Bowl will win $5,000 for their school’s math and science departments, the DOE said in a news release. Other schools placing in the top 16 will receive $1,000 for their school’s science departments.

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, x.com/KellyLyell and  facebook.com/KellyLyell.news. 

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Preston Middle School wins regional, advances to National Science Bowl