Samo Acadeca's sixth consecutive Oceans Bowl win
By Rachel Levin, Copy Editor
On March 6, Samo’s Academic Decathlon team (Acadeca), overseen by Acadeca advisor Ingo Gaida, won NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Regional Oceans Science Bowl. This marks their sixth consecutive win and means they can move on to the national competition.
The Regional Oceans Bowl consists of a 60 question preliminary round, a 40 question semifinal round, a 20 question final round and 10 group questions. There are also six teams competing, with two being eliminated in each round. The runner up to Samo was University High School, staying strong until the final round in a competition that lasted five hours.
The subject matter covered during the Oceans Bowl emulates its title— the ocean. Each of the four competitors on Samo’s team, Sara Akiba (’22), Halie Matsui (’23), Theodore Berger (’21) and Ethan Foley (’22), specialized in one of four categories: geological, social/chemistry, biological and physical oceanography. The questions they had to answer on the spot ranged from ocean acidification to the resemblance of a crab to another creature.
This was the team’s sixth win in a row in the Regional Oceans Bowl, not accounting for their numerous first place wins in the other Acadeca teams. This can be attributed to their rigorous training and genuine interest in the subjects. The teams meet two or three times a week outside of class on a normal schedule, and meet with Gaida for up to six out of school hours a week leading up to competitions.
“Most of the kids in there do [have a general interest] in science,” Gaida said.
That interest in science goes further than just class. Acadeca can be a jumping off point for a career in biology, oceanography and much more. For Berger, whose specialty is marine biology, it's the beginning of a life in the world of science.
“Acadeca has been an integral part of my journey of discovering what I love to learn about. It exposed me to the wonders of biology that my future career will revolve around,” Berger said.
Although the subject matter of the competition was the same as always, the format for the competition was changed a little to adapt to the Zoom setting. The Samo team answered questions in their own breakout room, while usually they would be rushing to answer before another team’s member, face-to-face. This made the competition even more nerve-wracking.
“[We] had no way of knowing how well we were doing in the competition; we had nothing to compare our scores to,” Akiba said.
The team usually would compete in person in locations like Alaska or the Mississippi coasts, but because of COVID-19, they could not compete in-person. This means that the prizes—all-expense paid trips to science-oriented field trips in exotic places—had to be reduced to Amazon gift cards. At least, that is what they received when they won first place last year. This year's prize will be determined upon the conclusion of nationals in May. Zoom or not, Acadeca continues to work hard with their passion for the sciences.
