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<\/p>\nCaleb Blanchard \u201922 (CLAS) knows firsthand how seriously some young students take science.<\/p>\n
When he attended Mansfield Middle School, Blanchard was one of dozens to try out for a spot on the school\u2019s science bowl team, or at least secure a place on its secondary Team 2 or Team 3. He says the competition was fierce and those who were added to the roster would practice almost daily in preparation for the regional contest.<\/p>\n
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\u201cIf you see the trophy section of some middle schools, every kid wants to have one of their trophies in there,\u201d he says. \u201cThis is no different.\u201d<\/p>\n
But not every student is involved in an activity that\u2019s traditionally associated with competition, yet they\u2019re just as eager to bring their school pride.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is very serious for a lot of middle schoolers,\u201d Cat Odendahl \u201922 (ENG) says of the Southern New England Middle School Science Bowl<\/a>. \u201cCoaches train their students before the competition. We\u2019ve had to chase down coaches to get their student rosters because they\u2019re still hosting tryouts or still trying to figure out which students are the best.\u201d<\/p>\n Even though Blanchard is many years from his days as a student participant, he still takes the Middle School Science Bowl seriously \u2013 as does Odendahl, Marissa Airoldi \u201922 (CLAS), and Viktoria Sinani \u201922 (CLAS, CAHNR), who round out the four senior-most members of the Middle School Science Bowl Student Leadership Team at UConn.<\/p>\n The Southern New England Middle School Science Bowl, which is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy<\/a> but run through UConn at the regional level, accepts up to 32 teams from Connecticut and Rhode Island for a day-long, head-to-head competition to see which area adolescents deserve a place in the national event.<\/p>\n Before it went virtual in the pandemic, the science bowl brought hundreds of competitors, coaches, volunteers, and parents to campus, says Odendahl, who\u2019s been involved since her freshman year. It\u2019s an opportunity to watch the next generation of STEM students compete and to show off what UConn has to offer during the competition\u2019s downtime.<\/p>\n The Engineering Ambassadors<\/a>, the Chemistry Club<\/a>, the local chapter of the Society of Women Engineers<\/a>, and other organizations usually set up tables during in-person competition years to wow the young students with things like elephant toothpaste, a foaming mix of hydrogen peroxide, dish soap, and yeast, Odendahl says.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s science, it\u2019s engineering, it\u2019s technology, it\u2019s mathematics, that\u2019s what life is and it\u2019s only getting more complex and more advanced in all the different fields,\u201d Airoldi, a biology major from Tolland, says. \u201cIf you have a good understanding of one area you can see how everything relates. Being knowledgeable in STEM is important because it\u2019s a confidence builder. If someone feels they aren\u2019t musically or athletically gifted, maybe this is their thing. Maybe the science bowl is for them, and they can go out and excel.\u201d<\/p>\n Airoldi got involved only this year after hearing about it from Odendahl, a chemical engineering major from Trumbull. The event was held virtually Feb. 26 and earned Team 1 from West Woods Upper Elementary School in Farmington a spot in the national semifinal competition on May 7.<\/p>\n The questions get progressively harder as teams proceed through the event, says Blanchard, a biological sciences major from Mansfield. They may start with something simple like, \u201cWhat is the powerhouse of the cell?\u201d and eventually go into algebra 2 or AP biology by the final rounds \u2013 topics usually reserved for high school and beyond.<\/p>\n \u201cViktoria and I were in the room when they were doing those rounds,\u201d Airoldi says, \u201cand I was thinking I wouldn\u2019t have known that when I was in middle school.\u201d<\/p>\n Odendahl says one of this year\u2019s sample questions asked about the difference in topology between the East and West coasts. It was a multiple-choice question, but the roughly 10- to 14-year-olds needed to think about the definition of the word topology, then about the geography of east versus west, and then about similarities and differences.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the schools, they did this as a class,\u201d says Sinani, a molecular and cell biology and animal science major from Branford who\u2019s been involved for three years. \u201cThat is very intense.\u201d<\/p>\n But now after STEM-centric college classes, she sees how the different fields work together: \u201cAll of the subjects interconnect. I understand how that works because I learned this in chemistry class. This makes sense because I learned this in this class, and this makes sense because I learned this in this class. Combining it together, at least for me personally, it\u2019s a very euphoric feeling.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/SNEMSSB-2022-21024_1_pic-225x300.jpg\")
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