NOBCChE's 2010 Science Competitions

During this year's spring national meeting of the National Organization for the Professional Advancement of Black Chemists & Chemical Engineers (NOBCChE), held from March 29 to April 2 in Atlanta, the organization ran its 22nd round of science competitions for middle and high school students. The competitions—a science bowl and a science fair—were sponsored by the American Chemical Society and Agilent Technologies.

The science bowl is a round-robin event in which teams of four or five players compete with other groups to answer quiz questions about chemistry, as well as about historical black figures in science. This year, 24 teams from around the U.S. came to Atlanta to compete.

William F. Carroll Jr., a past-president of ACS and this year's master of ceremonies for the science bowl final, says that the event uses a randomized list of close to 1,000 questions to test the knowledge of the participants. The science bowl is fun, he says, and "it's a huge part of the ethic of the NOBCChE meeting."

The following is a list of this year's winners:

First place: Team Timbuktu Gold from Baton Rouge, La., including Ikechi Akujobi, Justin Brumfield, Kristopher Dandridge, Taylor Gauff, and Kevin Paul Jr.

Second place: Team La Jolla from San Diego, including Cameron S. Baggett, Rafael Cosman, Mandela A. W. Newsome, and Varun Rau.

Third place: Team Enterprise from Detroit, including Dshawne Butler, Evan Hoye, Jeffrey Morris Jr., Corey Norman, and Dillon Ward.

First place in junior division (grades 7–9): Team Timbuktu Saints from Baton Rouge, La., including Jaylun Brumfield, Aaron Gauff, Kelli McFarland, and Nwadi Oko.

The science fair features individual student research projects, which are evaluated by a panel of judges. The contestants present their results in a poster format and must answer questions from the judges.

The following is a list of the 2010 junior division (grades 7–9) winners:

First place: Afula Ofori-Darko

Second place: Allan Broderick

Third place: Faduma Ali

Honorable mention: Justin Ingram

Originality in Research Award: Aminah Hilaire

Innovation in Research Award: Kidist Getnet

The following is a list of the 2010 senior division (grades 10–12) winners:

First place: Ksenia Zakirova

Second place: Dayrin Mendez

Third place: Anthony Adams

Honorable mention: Daniel Marks

Originality in Research Award: Mason Friend

Innovation in Research Award: Dalton Allen

Chemical & Engineering News

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