<p>I've contacted lots of schools in my area (oh, if your school is interested since we're outside the states anyways, contact me!) and there are some schools who are interested. </p>
<p>The reason why I'm interested in making a science bowl is because I can't enter the one science bowl that I've found. So here's my questions: </p>
<p>1) Is there actually an international science bowl out there? (By science bowl I mean a science quiz team answering questions as well as doing hands-on competitions like you are required to build something given some materials) </p>
<p>2) If not, what does it take to organize a science bowl? I can maybe get the science teachers in my school to write questions, but that doesn't really happen in a "normal" science bowl right? </p>
<p>I'm part of the science club and part of the club is raising awareness. I've come down to helping out students in my school with science, and maybe some fundraisers. But a competition would definitely boost the club's interests! It'll be very cool I think.</p>
<p>now i have like 7 interested schools. … but i think as the person who mentioned my school will probably have to host it. </p>
<p>What goes into hosting a science bowl? </p>
<p>Lots of science teachers interested, willing to participate? I can also get some club members to volunteer to be time keepers and oh yea, teachers to read the questions out. </p>
<p>Of course, the teachers would also be writing something like this out. </p>
<p>There’s always people saying how its not feasible. Is it really not?</p>
<p>Kudos to your initiative! You seem to be all set with teachers writing questions, students taking the time, etc. Just a few things to think about:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Location: Does every participating school hold the contest at their own school or do you meet in a central location? Meeting is waaaay more fun, but also more challenging to organize. Where would you have enough space, who pays for transportation, who pays for food, etc?</p></li>
<li><p>Who is interested in participating? If the science club students (who would be the most interested I suppose) help administer the event, how many other students at your school would be left to participate? </p></li>
<li><p>When does it take place? During school time or afterwards? How many students would be willing to participate on their own time?</p></li>
<li><p>Which students is the exam targeted at? How much science background do you assume a participant has? </p></li>
<li><p>Is it a team contest or is everyone fighting for themselves? If you have teams, do you allow any team (e.g. the 6 brightest seniors) or do you require the teams to be mixed (e.g. 2 out of 6 people have to be freshmen and sophomores).</p></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li><p>Location: I’m gonna talk to my school’s activities director to see what can be orranged. meeting is a lot more fun! and that way you can allow for actual lightning rounds. depends on the principal and the activities director. the space and transportation… space can be the science rooms. transportation… that i’ll have to talk with the activities director. there’ll be like 10 rounds which means it can really all be done in a day. so worse case scenario we’ll lneed homestays… that’s gonna make things tough. I suppose some schools that are nearby can’t just drive here early morning… unless they arrive by 12 and leave by 6 or something. probably can’t fit it into one day! </p></li>
<li><p>Since we only need 4-5 students per team we have a lot more science club students. and they’ll probably be tryouts to see whoever can best answer the questions… i think that shouldn’t be a problem. what’s really important is getting the activities director to consider hosting it. </p></li>
<li><p>It’s probably be on a weekend, perhaps 6 months from now. i’ve contacted some schools and there are a lot of interested schools but they don’t have a science club so i’m asking them to make one. i mean, its only 4-5 students it can’t be that hard right? </p></li>
<li><p>We assume that they know the AP/IB material very well. so that’s gonna be challenging for most ppl. that makes it better because then you actually have to struggle w/ the questions. of course there will be some easy ones too, it really depends on how fast you respond to them. </p></li>
<li><p>Team contest! what might be the problem w/ the 6 brightest seniors? because our quiz team we always send the brightest people. I assume everyone is going to do that anyway? </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Also, if your school is in the Asia-Pacific Region and you’re interested in joining let me know!</p>
<p>Oh yea, and this is all based on the assumption that we can’t join the US DOE’s Sci Bowl. Which I think is true. </p>
<p>OK. To do critical things: </p>
<p>1) Get ACAMIS approval
2) Get my activities’ director’s approval (and principal)
3) See what my sci teachers think of it
4) Advertise to get our science club’s membership going. </p>
<p>WE NEED A COMPETITION to get people to be interested in sci. We already got sci fair but that’s not enough… some ppl dun wanna do fairs. but they know the stuff. lol</p>
<p>Think about the goal of your science bowl: do you want to find out which school has the strongest science students or do you want to get more students excited about sciences? How will a competition for the 5 strongest seniors at your school get more students interested in sciences and the science club?</p>
<p>Our local math competitions were so fun because they got so many students involved. At one point my school sent 60 students to a single event. Of course every school made sure that the strongest students were on the same team (subject to the restriction that 2/10 team members had to be freshmen or sophomores), and there was a competition among schools to see which school had the strongest team. But the meetings were open to all students and everyone had a good time.</p>
<p>Another point to think about is what kind of questions you want to ask. Are you thinking about hard IB/AP textbook-style questions? Questions that require standard knowledge to be applied in unexpected ways? Topics that are not covered in the standard curriculum to see how much students learn on their own outside of the classroom? I think the latter two would make for a much more interesting event than textbook-style questions, but it would make it impossible to prepare for the event if that’s what you were planning to do.</p>