Absarokee students compete in Science Bowl
Nine junior high and high school students from Absarokee traveled to Billings on March 11-12 to compete in the Big Sky Regional Science Bowl.
The teams were coached by Absarokee science teachers Catherine Frazer and Chris Gunderson.
“This is a ‘quiz bowl’ competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and consists of questions about math, energy, biology, chemistry, physics, and earth and space science,” Frazer said. “Teams of four students compete against each other.”
The junior high team – Brent Kelley, Haley Richardson, Camilla Nusbaum and Faith Holton – beat teams from Park City and Lockwood, but lost to strong teams from Saint Francis, Shepherd and the eventual winner, North Middle School of Great Falls. The junior high team made it out of the round-robin competition into the double elimination competition and finished fifth out of 13 teams.
The high school team – Keely Mills, Robbie Coleman, Chloe Flynn, Cole Brown and Tana Babb – beat Nashua but lost to teams from Billings West, Billings Central and Helena High School. This wasn’t good enough to make it into the double elimination tournament.
“These students had been practicing during lunch twice a week since Christmas break,” Frazer said. “There were originally two more Absarokee teams, but due to the state basketball tournament, several students were unable to attend the Science Bowl.”
Other Absarokee students who were involved in the program included Emma Chandler, Colleen Culbertson, Rily Livingston, Sydney Copeland, Katrina Feddes, Rebecka Lester, Hannes Chandler, Christopher Pasecznyk, Kaiya Holmquist, Tymber Jensen and Colton Young.