LADWP Science Bowl is Most Successful Regional Competition in U.S. Department of Energy National Program; 13th Annual Event Set for Sat. Feb. 26 with 42 Team Field

Business Wire, Feb 23, 2005

LOS ANGELES -- North Hollywood To Defend Regional Title

With the 2005 theme, "Give Me a Place to Stand, and I Will Move the Earth," by Archimedes, the 13th Annual LADWP Science Bowl, the most successful regional high school competition in the U.S. Department of Energy National Science Bowl program, will be held Saturday, Feb. 26 from 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the L.A. Department of Water and Power downtown headquarters, 111 N. Hope St. The public is welcome to attend.

A total of 42 teams from 26 public and private high schools throughout the city of Los Angeles are expected to participate this year. Last year North Hollywood High School won the LADWP Science Bowl and won the fifth place trophy at the National Science Bowl in Washington, D.C. LADWP regional championship teams have won four national titles and placed in the top five ranking teams eight out of the last 10 years, a record.

Dr. E.C. Krupp, director of the Griffith Observatory, will serve as the celebrity moderator at the final round of the competition.

Also for the first time, an alumni moderator, Adam Diament, PhD, a former Science Bowl team member, will serve as one of the officials asking the difficult questions during competition. Dr. Diament is a post doctoral fellow in genetics at UCLA. He was a member of the 1993 Venice High School Team that was the first LADWP regional champion to represent the city at the National Science Bowl.

"We are indeed proud that the LADWP Science Bowl has grown to become an important annual event attracting some of the nation's most talented and hardworking students. The amount of knowledge and depth of understanding that the students possess is amazing," said Melinda Rho, chair of the Science Bowl Volunteer Steering Committee.

Rho added that the program encourages participation by students from all backgrounds and parts of the city. The program, she said, has attained such high esteem that colleges look to a student's success at the event as a hallmark of achievement.

Winning participating team members, she said, at regional and national levels have gone on to attend some of the most competitive colleges and universities in the nation including Harvard University, Yale University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, California Institute of Technology, University of California, Berkeley, Columbia University, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and Stanford University.

Science Bowl is a fast-paced game-show style competition in which two teams of four students, with an alternate, answer toss-up questions from a moderator. Individual students buzz in. The student that buzzes in the fastest with the correct answer earns four points for his or her team. Then that team has the exclusive right to answer the bonus question worth 10 points.

The LADWP Science Bowl buzzer competition is in two parts. In the morning, from 8:30 a.m. to approximately 12:30 p.m., teams will be competing in six divisions or leagues of seven teams each. The top two or three schools from each division will advance to the double elimination tournament in the afternoon. The final round to determine the champion is expected to start about 4:30 p.m.

Based on the format of the General Electric College Bowl television program, Science Bowl questions cover such technical fields as physics, chemistry, astronomy, earth and physical science, calculus, trigonometry, technology and current events in math, science and computer fields.

The winning team members in the LADWP Science Bowl will each receive the $1000 Hitachi Scholarship. Their school will also receive a trophy and $2000 toward the purchase of science equipment or materials. Additional prizes for second to fourth place team members range from $1,000 U.S. Savings Bonds to $200 gift cards. Also, $1250 to $1750 in equipment or materials will be awarded to schools for teams placing second through fourth. The winning team will travel to Washington, D.C., April 28 to May 2, to represent the city and the regional competition at the National Science Bowl.

The national grand prize this year is a trip to Australia to attend the International Science School in Sydney. Other prizes for the second to fourth place national finishers and to the team winning the Good Sportsmanship Award include weeklong trips to U.S. Department of Energy labs and facilities.

In addition to the "buzzer competition," schools in the Science Bowl also have an opportunity to participate in the Franklin Lu Hands-On Competition, which poses a different activity and challenge every year. A separate group of prizes are provided to student team members that are successful in this event. The hands-on competition is named for the late Franklin Lu, a DWP engineer and volunteer, who was instrumental in establishing this event as part of the LADWP Science Bowl program.

This year more than 11,000 students in 1800 high from 40 states, the District of Columbia, the Virgin Island and the Indian Nations will participate in one of the 66 regional competitions. Since the National Science Bowl program began in 1991, more than 70,000 students have participated. Nine regional competitions are held in California including the JPL Science Bowl for schools outside the city of Los Angeles and Los Angeles Unified School District areas.