University High School of Irvine buzzed their way to victory on Saturday, Feb. 2, in the Los Angeles regional round of the National Science Bowl competition at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. Battling through questions about Saturn's moon Mimas, parallel-plate capacitors and hydrogen bonding in organic molecules, University earned 80 points in the final match against the second place team, Arcadia High School, which scored 24 points.
Santa Monica High School placed third out of the 24 teams from Los Angeles, Orange and Santa Barbara counties that gathered at JPL on Feb. 2. The sportsmanship award went to Maranatha High School of Pasadena for their exceptional graciousness with other teams and competition officials, spirit of fair play and enthusiasm for science.
Coordinated by the Department of Energy, the National Science Bowl quizzes students on biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and Earth and space sciences. The competition, which attracts about 20,000 middle and high school students nationwide, is designed to inspire students to pursue a career in science or math. The JPL regional high school competition has been in existence for 21 years.
The main prize for the winners of the regional competition is an all-expense-paid trip to Washington, D.C., to compete in the National Science Bowl on April 25 to 29, 2013. Other prizes for University High School included a trophy, medals, winner's banner, a NASA backpack, calendars with space images and a toy version of NASA's Mars Curiosity rover. The main prize for the sportsmanship award winners is a trip to Catalina Island to visit the Wrigley Marine Science Center, part of USC's Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies.
More information on Science Bowl is available here: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/nsb.cfm.