FORT SMITH — When the U.S. Department of Energy sponsored its first National Middle School Science Bowl competition in 2002, Trinity Junior High School in Fort Smith was one of the first in the Arkansas/ Oklahoma region to field a team.
Getting in on the ground floor has certain advantages. Trinity’s Science Bowl Team won regional championships and went on to compete in the National Science Bowl in 2005 and 2006.
As other middle schools began to form teams, regional competition became more fierce, and Trinity lost for three straight years — 2007 through 2009.
On Jan. 23, Trinity’s Science Bowl team, captained by Forrest Teeter, whose older brother, Jacob, had been a member of the award-winning teams of 2005 and 2006, regained the championship and earned an all expense-paid trip to the national competition April 29-May 4 in Washington, D.C.
Tia Marsh, who teaches theology at Trinity and is the Science Bowl sponsor, doesn’t have an academic background in science. She gives all the credit for the win to the students.
“I was the Quiz Bowl coach and became the Science Bowl coach because I had the buzzer,” she said.
Parent volunteers Dr. Mark Teeter, an anesthesiologist, and Dr. Jill Guerrra, a math professor at University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, also help with coaching.
Only seventh and eighth graders are eligible to compete in Middle School Science Bowl, and, following a ninth-grade break, Trinity students can resume Science Bowl competition in their local high schools.
Marsh currently coaches three four-member teams who competed in the regional science bowl.
“My ’A’ team usually has three eighth graders and one seventh grader, who can serve as captain the following year,” she said.
The winning team members are eighth graders Teeter, Jacob Schwartz and Arman Hemmati and seventh grader Caleb Kendrick.
“There’s a real team commitment,” Marsh said. “Members have to compose biographies and media data and follow a strict dress code for competition.”
Teams and chaperones will stay at the National Youth 4-H Conference Center in Washington, D.C. There are two primary competitions — the academic competition, in which more than 130 teams will compete against one another to correctly answer multiple-choice science and math questions first; and the solar car design competition, in which cars assembled by different teams will race against one another on the conference center tennis courts.
“Every Thursday (meeting day) it’s been overcast,” Marsh said of their progress on their solar car. “The students are trying to get it to work, but the sun hasn’t been cooperating.”
During the National Science Bowl, scientists from the Department of Energy, who provide the car kits, will work with students on improving and refining their designs before the final racing day.
Educational and recreational activities are built into the schedule, too. On their first night in Washington, D.C., students will take a bus tour of the monuments and will have the opportunity to visit parts of the Smithsonian during competition week.
And, as she has done with previous winning teams, Marsh will take the students to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for Mass on Sunday and spend an extra day in Washington to see more of the Smithsonian and the Capitol. The International Spy Museum, filled with hands-on activities, and the Air and Space Museum are other favorites.
Schwartz admits to being “excited and nervous” about the trip, but excitement wins out for seventh grader Kendrick.
“I want to see everything in Washington,” he said.
