SAN JOSE, Calif. (Diya TV) — Joaquin Miller Middle School in San Jose won the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Science Bowl for middle schools at the beginning of the month, San Jose’s Lynbrook High took second in the high school division.
The team from Joaquin Miller defeated peers from Indianapolis to capture the title, and earned trophies, individual medals and $1,000 for their schools’ science departments. Lynbrook’s team was honored with the same in their second-place efforts.
During the final round in high school competition, the Lynbrook team fell to a team from Montgomery Blair High in Silver Spring, Maryland.
The Joaquin Miller team members were Chinmay Lalgudi, Emily Liu, Milan Ganai, Sathvika Anand and Jonathan Huang, coached by Zhijie Xiong and Vibha Walia. For finishing second, the five Lynbrook students also won a five-day guided tour of the Great Salt Lake Park and Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, including whitewater rafting, hiking, and seeing geysers and geological formations.
This year’s edition of the tournament attracted nearly 10,000 high school students and more than 5,000 middle school students. The National Science Bowl was created in 1991 in an effort to encourage more students to excel in math and science and to pursue careers in the same fields. The teams face off in a timed format as they answer questions regarding biology, chemistry, Earth science, physics, energy and math.
In the high school competition, the final question that determined the winner was, “Material A has a bulk modulus that is twice the bulk modulus of material B. If both A and B have the same densities, by what factor must the speed of sound in B be multiplied to find the speed of sound in A?” The correct answer was the square root of 2.
