WAYNE – Nearly 50 teams from 25 schools took part in the Nebraska Virtual Science Bowl over two separate Saturday’s in early February.
The Nebraska Middle School Science Bowl was on Saturday, February 6 while the Nebraska High School Science Bowl was on Saturday, February 13.
After working through some issues with technology in the middle school competition, the high school Science Bowl went off flawlessly.
Dr. Todd Young, Nebraska Science Bowl Regional Coordinator, said the big difference with the virtual format was that teams didn’t compete head-to-head.
“Basically, what happened is that all the teams were read the same sets of questions,” said Dr. young. “They scored a certain amount for those questions and the top scorers moved onto the next set of questions. We just kept doing that until we ended up having a champion.”
Categories for the middle school were based on earth and space, physical science, life science, math and energy while high school teams had subjects of biology, chemistry, earth and space science, energy, mathematics and physics.
Question sets for middle school teams were 15 questions and 18 questions for high school teams.
This year’s middle school champion was Moore Middle School of Lincoln while Brownell-Talbot won the high school portion of the Nebraska Science Bowl.
Both teams normally would receive an all-expense paid trip to the National Science Bowl in Washington, D.C. but the event will be held virtually in late March this year. Each regional champion was awarded $500.
Dr. Young once again appreciated the volunteer support from Wayne State College students as well as members from the community of Wayne.
“What was kind of really fun this year that we typically don’t have is that I actually had people helping from Omaha, Georgia and Michigan,” Dr. Young added. “So, it was fun to have those new faces basically connecting with us and helping us from a far.”
Wayne Community Schools submitted a team in each of the science bowl competitions. The Wayne junior high team placed 11th while the all-freshman Wayne High team finished 15th.
Visit wsc.edu for more information or contact Dr. Young by phone at 402-375-7471 or email toyoung1@wsc.edu.