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The Wesleyan Wolf Post Volume 4, Issue 4
A Publication of Wesleyan School
STAFF: WESLEYAN SCHOOL ADVANCES TO THE NATIONAL SCIENCE BOWL 5th Erin McConnell A. DeAugustinis This April, Wesleyan School sent a team to compete in the National Science Bowl in Washington, D.C. The five Rachel McFarland team members were (as pictured below) 7th graders Nicholas Poulos, Erin McConnell, & Watson Copeland, and 8th graders Sara Carmichael and Reed Thomas. In the weeks leading up to the competition, each of the five team mem6th bers was working his or her hardest to prepare for Nationals. The team members had practice sessions on Friday afHarrison Larner ternoons and study sessions on Wednesday mornings. Various teachers also offered to help the team in their efforts. Madeline Metz The national competition would be in two parts. First was the academic portion, where the Wesleyan team would Jennifer Nolan compete against other teams from different states in seven rounds. The teams would be asked various questions Hannah Sterling on different aspects of science and math concepts, from Ian Venkatesan algebra to chemistry and life science. The top 16 teams Esther Williams for the academic portion would then compete in a doubleelimination round for the win. The Wesleyan team, how7th ever, won two matches out of seven and did not qualify Madeline Benfield for double elimination. Leandro Haddad The second part was the car competition. Each team Kat Hughes would have to build a lithiumion battery powered car, Erin McConnell which would have to carry a 737g salt shaker and race down a Nicholas Poulos twenty meter track. Mr. Tablada, middle school art teacher, Grayson Ragsdale assisted the team with building the car in backwork during Kelly Roth the week. All of the team members worked hard on the car: planning, designing, building, and fixing right up 8th until the National Competition. Their car, consequently, Will Tanner won fifth in Design at Nationals. The judges loved that the Maguire Wilder car was entirely recyclable, from the cardboard chassis to the salt shaker holder, which was built from a plastic SubMargaret Ann Yates way tray. Congratulations to Reed, Sara, Nicholas, Watson, and Erin for an amazing job at the National Science Bowl! INSIDE THE BEES: AN INSIDER’S LOOK AT THE SPELLING AND GEOGRAPHY BEES Noah Young Nicholas Poulos We’ve all heard about them. The Spelling Bee’s coming up in late May, the Geography Bee was about a FACULTY month ago, and the Science Bowl was in late April. (I will focus on Spelling & Geography since Erin is covering ADVISORS: the Science Bowl.) What actually happens in those bees, though? What do the competitors do? How does the proDr. Pat McCoy Mr. James Moleta cedure go? Well, here are the answers! I recently competed in a few Bees, so I know what it’s like. First, I’ll talk about the Spelling Bee. The State Spelling Bee only had 20 competitors. They all sat in chairs and waited until their name was called, then they walked up to the microphone and spelled the word that was given to them. Pretty easy, right? It’s a fairly simple, Be sure not to if challenging, process, because the words get harder and harder as miss... you advance. You can’t spell right away, though. Since it’s televised, you have to wait about half an hour for all of these important people Hot Summer Plans! to give meaningful speeches about whoknows-what. It’s speech after speech after speech until the competition actually starts. That’s 8th Grade Photo when it starts to get a little nerve-wracking. What word will you get? Montage! Will you know it? There’s no rhyme or reason to how you get your word. It just comes off of a list that you don’t know about, so it’s all about Spring Sports luck when it comes to what word you’ll be getting. If you know your Wrap-ups! words and others don’t, you win! Now, on to the Geography Bee. It’s a little different. For one thing, there are about a hundred kids competing, Fantastic Fiction! so the groups are divided up. You go into a room with 19 other people, you sit down and listen to a speech or two, then the moderators start World News! asking questions around the table. What round it is depends on what question you’ll get since geography is such a huge subject. If you’re Christianity Corner!on the World Capitals round, you have to name a capital. If you get your question right, nice job! That’s a point for you! If you get it wrong, Wacky News! you don’t get any points. After nine rounds, they see who among the hundred kids has a perfect score. They take them to a secret tiebreaker Delicious Recipes! round, then you go to an auditorium and listen to a few more speeches. Then ten finalists duke it out for a while until two remain. The winner of the two is…well, then winner. And that’s and lots more! how it works! I encourage all of you to try your best at the school level of these bees so you, too, can compete at higher and higher levels in these competitions! Who knows, maybe YOU will be a national champion someday! Editor’s Note: Tune in to ESPN this week to follow Nicholas as he advances through the Scripps National Spelling Bee!