The middle school Science Bowl team’s recent win at the Central Coast Regional Middle School Science Bowl on February 26 is an impressive accomplishment. This competition has been the team’s best finish in three years, with it featuring 16 other schools in various counties across southern California.

Science Bowl is a jeopardy style competition where students compete against other schools by answering questions about topics such as science and math. Bishop’s science teacher and club sponsor, Mr. Jim Jordan, states that “in a normal year, the two schools would compete head-to-head with buzzers but in the COVID years…competitions were virtual and there were no buzzers.” One of the highschool coaches, Ryan Zhu (‘25), states that “Science Bowl has pivoted more towards depth of knowledge” where “teams play independently, answering questions by themselves for points.”

Ryan also explains that Science Bowl “for the most part involves preparing for the regional competition in early spring with a variety of activities” including “reading questions, presentations on material, and overall tips to coordinate as a team.” In an article on Knights News, Bishops science teacher Jim Jordan and club sponsor stated “The student coaches led weekly practices after school and helped teach the concepts to the entire team.”

Ryan also expresses how impressive the middle schoolScience Bowl’s results have been as this has been the first year since the pandemic began where Bishop’s has had a science bowl team. Ryan also states how the middle school team “narrowly [lost] to St. John’s Lutheran by 4 points.” According to Knights News, Team 2 also made it to the final four elimination round.

Chris Tao (‘26), a member of Team 1, reflected on the team’s finish in the recent competition. “At first, our coordination was bad, but we were able to sort things out and make it through the 3rd round.” Chris also stated, “We didn’t talk about problems enough, people didn’t answer the question even if they knew the question.” Indeed, this thread of communication is evident as Chris ended with how Scibowl encourages communication with others on his team and how “it allows people to work in a competitive environment…[focusing on] science only…[and an] overall fun experience for people who like math or science.”

Mr. Jordan finds that the benefit of participating in Science Bowl is “the idea that students can learn without a teacher.” He elaborates by saying “there doesn’t have to be a teacher in a room with you to learn science” and “I think people realize that if you are excited about a topic and if you put yourself with the proper resources and you can help each other out that you can learn anything.” Mr. Jordan ends with “schools shouldn’t really be about teachers teaching students, they should be about helping students to become a lifelong, self-enabled learner.”

Lastly, Mr. Jordan also brought up the possibility of Science Bowl’s being introduced to Upper School. In fact, upper school students Jeremy Feng (‘25), Ryan Zhu (‘25), Sasha Berger (‘23), Eddie Qiao (‘23) and Jasper Jain (‘23) already participated in a competition on January 29th, where the team placed 8th overall. The expansion into upper school will mean more and more students participating in competitions such as the one on February 26 and January 29th. Hopefully these successes will become more frequent in the future!