Who we are, what we believe, and how we prepare.
Carmel Science Bowl exists to help students fall in love with science — the kind of deep, self-directed learning that produces strong physicists, chemists, biologists, and mathematicians long after high school. Competition is the catalyst, not the destination. We treat the U.S. science olympiads (USAPhO, USNCO, USABO, USESO, USAAAO) as the natural extension for serious students, and we measure success by whether members leave with a meaningfully deeper command of their subject and the self-study habits to keep going.
The National Science Bowl is a team-based, buzzer-format competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy. Teams of five compete across six subjects — Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Earth and Space Science, and Energy — alternating four-point toss-ups (individual, no consultation) with ten-point bonuses (full team collaboration). The path runs from Indiana Regionals each February at Eli Lilly to Nationals in Washington, D.C. each spring, where qualifying teams compete in a round robin followed by a double-elimination bracket.
We field three teams — A, B, and C — selected through nine weekly buzzer-based tryouts each fall, with returners in an advanced room and new students in a novice room. The A team is announced in early October; B and C teams are finalized by mid-November. All three compete at Regionals; the A team also travels to MIT Science Bowl (TBD) in November and Nationals in late April. B and C serve as a development pipeline — most current A team members started there as underclassmen. Our faculty sponsor is Mr. Ward, who teaches biology and biomedical sciences at CHS.
Science Bowl rewards breadth, speed, and accuracy under pressure; olympiads reward depth and hours of thinking through unfamiliar problems. The two reinforce each other, and our strongest members invest in both. We encourage every member to seriously pursue the olympiad in their primary subject — USAPhO, USNCO, USABO, USESO, or USAAAO. Many of our Olympiad medalists were Science Bowl members first.