N. Hollywood High Looks for the Formula to Repeat

The five members of North Hollywood High School’s defending championship Science Bowl team travel this weekend to Washington, D.C., feeling the way hip-hop’s Beastie Boys once boasted in song: “I’ve got science for any occasion, postulating theorems, formulating equations.”

But where the Beastie Boys’ knowledge of science is suspect, the North Hollywood team’s is anything but.

After winning five consecutive regional titles at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power Science Bowl, the school is making its fifth trip in a row to the national competition. The new champions will be announced Monday afternoon.

“I went through this last year, so I’m a little more confident this time,” said senior David Lee, who plans to attend MIT in the fall. “But I have no predictions. National [competition] is unpredictable.”

The team spent most of Wednesday afternoon at Lee’s house in Northridge, cramming in some studying before taking an evening flight.

“Last year, I really got acclimated to the whole environment,” said Stanford-bound senior Julia Hu of the national competition. “And this year, you bequeath your bowl knowledge to younger members.”

Coach Len Soloff said he was impressed by how hard the students have worked and thinks the team will benefit from having two returning seniors.

“The team that beats us will really have to know their stuff,” said Soloff, who has been involved in the program for five years and has been head coach for two.

Also on the team are senior Justin Burdick and juniors Edward Marti and Zahra Yazdani.

Unlike the Academic Decathlon, which is slower-paced and includes the arts, the Science Bowl is a rapid-fire contest that judges students on chemistry, physics, biology, earth science, computer science, math and astronomy.

The competition, organized by the U.S. Department of Energy, is modeled on the “General Electric College Bowl” quiz show, which was heard on radio and then seen on television from the 1950s to 1970s.

This weekend’s 11th annual contest will feature 64 teams from 41 states, the District of Columbia and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

California again dominates the schools competing this year, sending nine teams, including one from Santa Monica High School.

Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas and Washington are each sending three teams.

Los Angeles Unified School District has won four national titles since the competition’s inaugural year. In addition to North Hollywood’s victory last year, Venice High took the honors in 1997 and 1996, and Van Nuys High won in 1995. Van Nuys and Venice placed second and third, respectively, in the regional competition in February.

To keep the tradition going at North Hollywood, the school also fields a “B” team that often finds itself in the thick of competition at the regional level. Those students then graduate to the “A” team the following year.

As for this year’s group, members say they’re ready.

“There’s always more to study,” Hu said, “but we’ve done the best we could.”