Despite an 7:30 a.m. start-time, eighth grader Coleman Morris used the adrenaline rush he knows well from his time playing football for New Hope Middle School in rallying with his peers prior to competing in the regional finals of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Science Bowl held at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science on Saturday.
“I feel good, I really want to try to win the whole thing,” he said while waiting to start the day-long competition against 13 schools from around the state.
He added that his strategy is “just to answer the question.”
“Sometimes it’s wrong, but you just gotta do it,” he said.
While Oxford Middle School eventually won the competition — meaning they will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington D.C. to compete in the Office of Science’s National Science Bowl in April — Morris’s team made it to the seventh round before being eliminated.
Saturday’s event featured 31 teams and 151 students, including a team from Starkville Academy.
Tracy Davis, a seventh-grade science teacher with New Hope who has coached for the bowl for four years, was overjoyed with how her team placed.
“I am extremely proud of this team,” she said. “These students are definitely role models in and out of the classroom.”
Davis, who volunteers her time — including twice-weekly practices — alongside assistant coach Takeea Bozeman, a seventh and eighth-grade math teacher, said she did so because of her belief in the program.
“It’s really important for them, first of all, to be exposed to MSMS, and its great for their self confidence, and is great for those who are really gifted,” she said. “This is an academic competition. It gives kids a chance to excel academically, not just athletically.”
MSMS Executive Director Dr. Germain McConnell said this year’s competition was the biggest competition in the school’s 10 year’s of hosting the event. He said the response was due to greater outreach programs and called the event “fitting” with the objective of the school.
“This is great opportunity for gifted students on campus, and this is what we do,” he said, adding that about 85 percent of the students who attend the available summer camps with the school have an interest in attending the school, which runs grades 11 and 12, and that he’d assume many of those participating in Saturday’s bowl who are “loving math and science” would also be interested.
While MSMS has a competitive admissions process, including a necesssary ACT composite score of 24, good grades, essay completion and an interview — McConnell said the school’s selection process is about more than just grades.
“We’re really looking at, ‘How much do they really want to be here?'” he said.
Students received instructions at the beginning of the event, including “no talking during other team’s bonus rounds,” and that if they were to interrupt to answer a question and be wrong, four points would go to the opposing team.
With an answer time of five seconds for questions such as, “Regular table salt dissolving in water dissolves into what two ions?” (answer: sodium and chloride); “What reflecting space telescope has the largest reflecting area?” (answer: Hubble); and complicated algebra equations, the competition is as much about being quick on one’s feet as knowing the right answers.
Fourteen-year-old Ben Bradley, of New Hope, said his strategy is to have faith in his preparation.
“If you know the answer, say it, and don’t second-guess yourself,” he said.
New Hope’s team captain, eighth-grader Albeto Vasquez, said while he plays both cross country and football as well, he was extra excited — as an alegra-lover who’d like to one day be an engineer– to have the opportunity to compete and lead his team in Saturday’s competition.
And, he said, the support from those at home doesn’t hurt either.
“My parents are really proud of me,” Vasquez said.
Sam Luvisi is news editor and covers education for The Dispatch.
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