This year, Billings Central was represented by two Science Bowl Teams who competed in the annual Big Sky Regional Science Bowl Competition. They competed with hopes of taking first place for yet another year. The teams, led by BCCHS teachers Fr. John Pankratz and Jennifer Sogaard, have grown a lot and has seen success in past years. For the last three years, the Science Bowl Team has won the Regional Competition, receiving the honor of traveling to D.C. to compete in the National Science Bowl Competition.
There are a lot of components to being such a talented team; to be as good as BCCHS’s Science Bowl Teams is no easy task. They practice every week for months leading up to the actual competition, working on different question sets during their lunch period. And when the competition finally arrives in the Spring, the team doesn’t have to travel far at all because the tournament is in Billings at the MSUB campus. This year, they made it all the way to the final round, but fell just short of another regional title, losing to the Billings West team in the championship round. However, their run this year is nothing short of impressive, given they made it to the final round yet again, along with BCCHS Science Bowl Team 2 winning 3rd place at the competition. With its first ever regional competition win only several years ago, the Central Science Bowl team has looked its best in recent years, and they’ve continued to add to their legacy in the most recent competitions.
The style of a Science Bowl Round is quite simple. It is a buzzer-style competition, and whoever guesses first will receive the opportunity to answer. They can get a certain number of points from a correct answer. Alex Johnson, the Science Bowl Captain for the Billings Central Team 1, said, “We prepare in practices by answering past sets of questions with our own buzzer system, so we can see what categories different teammates are better at, who is going to guess before the time runs out, and other strategies.” Johnson stated that how the team practices and adapts to different players helps them to decide the best fit for each team member. (Courtesy)
As captain of the Science Bowl team, Johnson has to decide how to be the best leader he can be, no matter what the circumstances are. “It’s difficult because on bonus questions, when we can discuss as a team, there might be two very confident teammates saying different answers, and you have to employ your own knowledge, your thoughts on which answer might be more correct, and who might be better suited to know the answer to a specific question,” explained Johnson. Johnson also talked about how you need to be confident in yourself and not be shy to state your opinion on what the correct answer may be because even if you let your teammate answer, they might still be wrong.
Overall, there are many components to creating such a successful team, and Fr. John Pankratz and Jennifer Sogaard have been great coaches this season. They have guided the members to victory, and trained the team to be the best in ways that have led the team to tremendous success. Looking into the future, the Billings Central Science Bowl Team can expect a bright future and legacy.
