By TORY DENIS
[email protected]
WINDSOR, Vt. — Four Windsor High School students participated in their first-ever Quizbowl Competition, capturing sixth place this past Saturday, March 3 at Hanover High School in Hanover, New Hampshire.
Windsor Schools Principal Tiffany Cassano said on Tuesday that Jennifer Townsend, a Windsor math teacher, took the four students to Hanover for the Quizbowl.
“Windsor feels pretty confident with the academic rigor in our high school courses, and thought this would be a great experience for our students to utilize what they have learned across the content areas,” Cassano said in an email this week.
Students taking part were seniors Elijah Collier, Jacob Curtis, and Terrence (Terry) Ziccardi, and junior Matthew Fisher.
Cassano said she learned about the Quizbowl via email in mid-February, and forwarded that email to Townshend in hopes that she could pull a team together.
Townshend said that when Cassano told her about the competition and asked if she could gather a team, the four students agreed to try it, even though they did not practice at all beforehand.
“I asked them how they knew so much trivia … they said they played HQ (a trivia game) on their cell phones, and Matthew said he reads ‘this day in history’ on Wikipedia every day,” Townshend said. She added that he “digs deep to learn about the topics” provided about the day in history.
Quizbowl is a buzzer-based academic competition spanning core academic subjects. The question distribution includes “healthy doses of science, history, literature, geography, current events, fine arts, religion, mythology, philosophy, economics, anthropology, and pop culture,” according to the Windsor Schools website.
The competition is suitable for students in grades 9 through 12, and requires no prior experience.
Teams may consist of up to six students, but only four may play at a time.
The WHS team placed sixth overall out of 10 teams, even with Winter Carnival and the February vacation, which meant very little advance notice of the competition or time to prepare, Cassano said.
Matthew was recognized in the competition as being one of the eight high scorers overall among all the schools that took part, Townshend said. His prize was a book award.
The 10 teams came from eight high schools, according to National Academic Quiz Tournaments website, which included the March 3 results from the Open Academic Tournament, also known as the Quizbowl.
In addition to WHS, other school teams taking part came from Andover, Belmont, and Acton-Boxborough, Massachusetts; Merrimack, Plymouth, and Lisbon Regional in New Hampshire; and Fair Haven, Vermont.
Andover and Belmont, which placed first- and second-place, respectively, qualified for the 2018 High School National Championship Tournament.
Several other quiz bowl competitions will be taking place, but the WHS team has not yet determined if it will compete again this year, Townshend said.
Students at WHS also have several other extracurricular activities they can take part in at this time, including National Honor Society (NHS), Girls Learn International, Math Team, Student Council, Mountain Biking, Yearbook Staff, Jazz Band, Prom Committee, World Language Club, Robotics Team, 3-D Printing Team, Strength and Conditioning, and Youth and Adults Transforming Schools Together.
For more Windsor Schools updates, schedules and school news and achievements, visit www.wsesu.net.
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