This past weekend, a team of five Harker students participated in the South/West Bay Area Regional Middle School Science Bowl, taking second place behind Miller Middle School in a final round that was decided by a mere six points. Team Harker – comprising grade 8 students Leon Lu, Akshay Ravoor, Kaushik Shivakumar, Katherine Tian and team captain Alexander Young – suffered only one loss in the early rounds, against Kennedy Middle School, and then defeated four other schools to reach the finals. Because Miller had not yet lost, they had to be defeated twice in the final round. “Harker beat Miller decisively in the final, scoring 108 to 50 points,” said middle school science teacher Vandana Kadam. “However, Miller still had one life and Harker had to go against them again and in this round Miller got an early lead of 54 points over Harker in the first half.” In the second half, Harker claimed a 66-18 lead, but a new rule that introduced a limit of 23 questions per round prevented Harker from moving any further.

“Although Harker came in second, the performance by the team members was a winning one!” Kadam exclaimed. “They did a commendable job in every round. It is not easy to sit through 11 rounds answering the hardest science questions you can find, ranging from Earth science to astronomy to life science to physical science to mathematics.”