2 High School Teams Win Contest Trip to Germany

Student teams from two San Fernando Valley high schools won trips to Germany on Thursday in a competition that tested their knowledge of European economics, culture, geography, news and current events.

Harvard-Westlake School in North Hollywood tied for first place with Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton in the finals of the “Ambassadors to Europe” competition sponsored by the Los Angeles Times in Education Program and Lufthansa, the German airline.

The second-place winner was San Marino High School.

Buckley School in Sherman Oaks and Bloomington High School in San Bernardino County tied for third place.

All Southern California high schools were invited to participate in the competition, said Paula Poindexter-Wilson, director of the Los Angeles Times in Education Program.

The top 12 teams in Thursday’s finals were among teams from 600 schools that submitted essays to enter the contest.

Finalists answered questions on Germany and other European countries.

Members of the five top-scoring teams will leave Dec. 9 with their teachers for an all-expenses-paid, seven-day trip to Germany.

The trip will include an education summit with German high school students, tours of Cologne and Heidelberg and a discussion with elected officials in the State Parliament in Wiesbaden.

Members of Harvard-Westlake’s team are David Ganz, Jeremy Martin, David McAdams and Anthony Charuvastra.

Students on Buckley’s team are Sha-Sha Shiau, Kevin Marr, Jeremy Davidson and Chihiro Enoki.

The competition is the second in a series, Poindexter-Wilson said.

Last spring, teams from five high schools, who were tested on their knowledge of Asia, won weeklong study tours to Hong Kong.

“We hope to focus on every part of the world” in future competitions, Poindexter-Wilson said.