North Hollywood High Has Bowl Down to a Science

North Hollywood High School won its third straight regional Science Bowl on Saturday by defeating runner-up Palisades Charter in the final round.

The five victorious students from North Hollywood’s “A” team were in disbelief after the final match of the “Family Feud”-style competition in which teams answer rapid-fire questions on science, math and technology. The North Hollywood team bested the Pacific Palisades school by 104 points.

“It’s incredibly exciting, but right now it feels unreal,” said Nina Han, 17, a North Hollywood senior. “I’m sort of numb.”

The other students on the team are Daniel Bersohn, Tyler Rubin, Jackie Wong and Jeffrey Zira.

The Los Angeles Regional Science Bowl competition pitted 29 public and private schools in a series of heated matches at the downtown headquarters of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, sponsor of the event.

Bill Nye, the former host of the public television series “Bill Nye the Science Guy,” emceed the bowl’s final rounds.

The Venice High School “A” team placed third in the competition, and a second North Hollywood High team finished fourth.

Koh Ikeda, who has coached North Hollywood’s Science Bowl team for six years, said the team would celebrate its victory at a Studio City restaurant. “I’m proud of my students. They work very hard,” he said.

The first-place North Hollywood team now advances to the national competition, where the school has finished second the last two years.

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Members of Saturday’s winning team each received a $1,000 scholarship from Hitachi Ltd., a commemorative jacket and tickets to a Dodgers game where they will be recognized on the field.

The DWP gave cash awards to the top four schools for the purchase of science equipment. North Hollywood, a magnet school for gifted students, will receive $2,250 for its two winning teams.

Several schools in Saturday’s regional contest fielded two teams based on their standings in previous years and the number of times they participated in the bowl.

Students spend dozens of hours a week preparing for the competition, which tests their instant recall of subjects from computer science to chemistry. Questions are written by U.S. Department of Energy scientists and university professors.

Teams can try to guess what areas are likely to be tested from sample questions published on the Energy Department’s Internet site, but no master syllabus is provided.

The questions Saturday covered a wide range of subjects. At one point, students were asked what type of bond is found in the chemical compound cesium iodide. The correct answer is an ionic bond. In another question, they were asked which vitamin increases the absorption of iron in the small intestine. The answer is vitamin C.

Nearly 1,800 schools from across the country will battle it out at the May national competition in Washington, D.C.

In the past, Los Angeles Unified teams have performed well in the national bowl, created by the Department of Energy in 1991. Van Nuys High School took first place in 1995, and Venice High School won in 1996 and 1997.

The DWP also held a separate hands-on competition Saturday for schools that were eliminated from the science bowl’s early rounds.

In this event, teams had to build and race miniature “land yachts”--pine carts with aluminum foil sails.

King/Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science from South L.A. took first place in the overall competition, followed by a team from the Rose & Alex Pilibos Armenian School in Hollywood. St. Genevieve High School in Panorama City was third.