Wheatley School team wins LI science bowl
Vedant Singh, Victor Li, John Li, Karen Li, and Elan Mizhiritsky from The Wheatley School in Old Westbury placed first in this year's Long Island Regional High School Science Bowl held at Brookhaven National Laboratory. Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory
A team from The Wheatley School in Old Westbury won the top spot in this year’s Long Island Regional High School Science Bowl.
The Wheatley team — John Li, Karen Li, Victor Li, Elan Mizhiritsky and Vedant Singh — placed first last month against 19 other teams in the competition at Brookhaven National Laboratory. They will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to the national finals in Washington, D.C., on April 26-30.
The second-place team was from Great Neck South High School, while third- and fourth-place teams were from Island Trees High School in Levittown and South Side High School in Rockville Centre, respectively.
“We’re really proud to bring the trophy home to our school,” said Wheatley sophomore Karen Li, whose teammates included her two brothers, John and Victor. “My brother John is graduating this year, so winning was very special for all of us.”
The science bowl is a “Jeopardy!”-style competition with a four-division, round-robin format, featuring topics that range from biology to chemistry to physics. Winning teams in each division face off in a double-elimination series.
At the national finals, the top 16 teams will win $1,000 for their schools’ science departments.
PATCHOGUE
Play Program
The Patchogue-Medford school district launched a new Before School Play Program in the fall at its seven elementary schools, for students to add more playtime into their routines before the school day.
The program, which takes place once a week for an hour, will resume in the spring.
Sessions are monitored by faculty and staff, with children in all grades playing among each other. The initiative falls in line with the district’s “whole child education approach,” district officials said.
COUNTYWIDE
Super Bowl
Many local schools put a fun twist on learning and community service earlier this month through activities themed around Super Bowl LII.
In Northport, the high school’s Iron Chef class held a cooking competition in which students were challenged to create a unique Super Bowl appetizer. Dishes included spicy loaded nachos and deep-fried buffalo chicken mozzarella sticks — with administrators scoring the food on factors such as taste, presentation and level of difficulty.
In Commack, North Ridge Primary School hosted a “Souper Bowl” collection that brought in more than 7,100 cans and bags of soup, which were arranged into the shape of a giant sneaker by physical education teacher Lorraine Esposito. The soup was donated to Long Island Cares.
In Greenlawn, eighth-graders in Mary-Lynn Karpenske’s class at Oldfield Middle School collected 75 cans of soup as part of a “Souper Bowl” food drive to benefit the Harborfields Alliance for Community Outreach.
ISLANDWIDE
Bright Lights
Twenty-four Long Island educators have been named recipients of Bright Light Awards by Suffolk ASSET, also known as the Association of Suffolk Supervisors for Educational Technologies, for their efforts integrating technology into the classroom.
Winners and their school districts were: Lorie Beard, Amityville; Eileen Conroy, Cold Spring Harbor; Thomas Maher, Comsewogue; Danielle Palladino, Copiague; Thomas Fitzmaurice, Deer Park; Danielle Gately, East Williston; Meredith Kramer, Eastport-South Manor; Elizabeth Held, Elwood; Charles Gravina, Half Hollow Hills; Suzanne Valenza, Jericho; Danielle Thompson, Kings Park; Mildred Mirabile, Lindenhurst; Jon Falk, Longwood; Bonnie Connelly and Maryellen Gamberg, Mattituck-Cutchogue; Kate Conard, Mount Sinai; Brendan Colfer, Northport-East Northport; Susan Miele, Patchogue-Medford; Doug Shaw, Sayville; Matthew Murphy, South Huntington; Richard Cintorino, Springs; Andrew Weik, Three Village; Gerard DeSimone, West Babylon; and William Fisher, Westhampton Beach.— Michael R. Ebert
Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.
