Farmingdale High School students placed first in the Department of Energy Office of Science’s regional competition for the 2015 National Science Bowl on Saturday, Jan. 31. As the winning team, they will be competing in an all-expenses-paid trip to Washington, D.C., to compete in the National Science Bowl in late April.
“The reason we host the Science Bowl is because the Department of Energy thinks it’s really important to encourage students to take the sciences seriously,” said Ken White, manager of the Office of Educational Programs. “This competition allows students who love science to come together and compete with one another. It gets them on top of their game.”
The team was led by junior captain Suraj Muralidharan. The team members included Clarisse Baes, Jake Chammas, and Ramin Chowdhury who played for their first time this year, and Daniel Laine, a veteran senior.
Their coach Peter Macchia said, “Since we’ve been competitive every year, we wanted to prepare ourselves to be the best team, and our plan was playing faster. We pushed ourselves to play as fast as possible, and they were very impressive.”
The Science Bowl included questions from several categories including chemistry, biology, physics, earth science, astronomy, environmental science and math. With so many topics to become experts in, the students worked hard and practiced often. Each student also specialized in certain categories, so they could retain all the information as a team.
“We practiced after school everyday since September for one to three hours,” said Muralidharan. “I’ve been on the team since freshman year, and this year I learned all the topics.
We’ve achieved so much together, and we are collectively gifted.”
Laine believed studying and preparing was beneficial for him. He said, “I’ve been on the team since last year. It’s been a lot of fun, and it reinforced my knowledge of the subjects. You can’t just be good at one thing, you need to know everything. It’s a good challenge.”
Baes thought the whole team got very close since September, and their closeness helped them compete so well. “It’s been a really good learning experience for our team as a whole.
We’ve developed so many strategies together, and we did team dynamic exercises,” she said.
Overall the students agreed that preparing for the Science Bowl helped them become stronger. It also helped them realize that they can even pursue a career in the sciences if they put their minds to it.
“As of right now, I plan to pursue a career in medicine in the future,” said Muralidharan. “We all put our knowledge to the test, and we all are planning to have a career one day in the field of science.”
Macchia is proud of his team of students. He said, “I’m impressed with their talent and ability to learn. I love the passion and commitment our players have, and I hope I can return the favor and let our students favorite colleges know how special and talented they are. Winning always is a great finish, but our preparation is what helps the students long after the competition is over. What they will miss most when we are done is their practice.”
