Odle Middle School and Westview High School advance to National Science Bowl

The Bonneville Power Administration wrapped up its 30^th Annual Regional High School and Middle School Science Bowl with two teams advancing from the virtual event to compete on a national level in April.

Odle Middle School of Bellevue, Washington, emerged from a field of 20 teams representing Washington and Oregon to punch their ticket to the Department of Energy’s National Science Bowl. Odle Middle School is no stranger to success in these games as an Odle team previously competed in and won the 2018 National Science Bowl.

Tyee Middle School Teams 1 and 2, also from Bellevue, placed in second and third place in the competition, respectively.

In the High School Science Bowl, Westview High School of Portland took first place with stiff competition from Mountain View High School of Vancouver, Washington, and Sunset High School of Beaverton, Oregon, which came in second and third place, respectively.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the Regional Science Bowl took place online. Using a virtual format, the various teams competed one-at-a-time with two cameras on each student at all times. There were 3 preliminary rounds per team. This was followed by 3 elimination rounds for the top 8 schools, then top 4 schools and, finally, the top two schools.

“It took a lot of hard work and coordination, but we were thrilled to provide these students the opportunity to compete in a science bowl this year,” said Heather Bain, the coordinator for the BPA Regional Science Bowl. “This event allowed us to demonstrate to these young minds how important STEM education is, and that it can it open up pathways to some pretty exciting careers.”

Each online competition room had 3 officiants who asked questions as well as watched cameras and monitored audio for integrity, timed the students and conducted scorekeeping. The officiants were made up principally of volunteers from BPA and sister federal agencies.

BPA’s competition is our agencies largest STEM event of the year, enabling students to showcase their talents in science, technology, engineering and math. BPA views this event as an opportunity to encourage students to consider STEM-based careers and build the future labor pool of scientists and innovators so critical to the energy industry.

Moving forward, BPA is anticipating returning to the University of Portland’s campus in early 2023 for the 31^st Annual Regional Science Bowl.