National Science Bowl

This year was Westtown’s first time sending a team to the National Science Bowl competition. This competition is a tense and fast-paced Jeopardy!-style competition in which teams compete to answer science questions faster than their opponents. Questions can include topics in biology, chemistry, earth science, astronomy, physics, math, and energy science, often about extremely technical concepts.

Science teacher and faculty advisor of the team Niral Desai shares, “On February 22, five intrepid science students on the team traveled to the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in Princeton, New Jersey, and competed for the very first time against some of the top Science Bowl teams in the nation. Ben D’Alessandro ’26, Quinlan McLear ’26, Jamie Lee ’27, and Angela Wang ’26 joined captain Tessa Kipnis ’26 as our inaugural team, making Westtown history. The competition was fierce, and these five are looking optimistically toward next year’s competition.”

On March 2, eight Westtown students also attended the Johns Hopkins Invitational Science Bowl Tournament with science teacher Niral Desai and history teacher Marissa Colston in Baltimore, Maryland. “Dividing into two teams, our students competed in five rounds during the round-robin portion of the competition, with one of the two teams advancing to the double elimination bracket,” says Desai. “Our first team consisted of Tessa Kipnis, Quinlan McLear, Jamie Lee, and Angela Wang; on our second team, Ben D’Alessandro served as captain with teammates Leila Alobeidy ’28, Sarah Lan ’27, and Jerry Rao ’27.”

The Science Bowl program is thriving in its first year and team members are already eager to start studying for next year’s competition. Westtown is very proud of the hard work that our Science Bowl teams have shown in such a short time. The program aims to expand to the Middle School as interest in competing continues to grow. We look forward to continuing to showcase Westtown’s excellence in the National Science Bowl! Go ‘Town!