High school and middle school teams that won NETL’s annual regional Science Bowl competitions for West Virginia and western Pennsylvania made strong showings at the national contest held April 27-May 1 in Washington, D.C.

Suncrest Middle School Team 1 and Morgantown High School Team 1 earned trips to compete in the National Science Bowl after winning the 2023 West Virginia Regional Science Bowl.

Also located in Morgantown, Suncrest finished second in its opening day of round-robin competition at the national contest and advanced to double-elimination play. Suncrest went on to win its first and third matches in double elimination before it was eliminated.

Morgantown High School took fifth out of eight teams in its divisional round-robin competition, just one win away from advancing to the double-elimination portion of the contest.

North Allegheny Senior High School Team 1 and North Allegheny Marshall Middle School Team 1 won the 2023 Western Pennsylvania Regional Science Bowl.

At nationals, Marshall Middle School finished second in its round-robin competition, advanced to win its first and third matches in double-elimination play and was then eliminated.

North Allegheny Senior High tied for fourth with two other teams in its nine-team, round-robin competition, but missed moving on to double elimination after falling short in a head-to-head tiebreaker. Only the top four teams in each round-robin portion of the competition advanced to double elimination.

“I am quite proud of Suncrest and Marshall middle schools for advancing to double elimination. Their dedication and hard work preparing for nationals brought them success,” said Ken Mechling, NETL’s lead coordinator for the Science Bowls.

Both Suncrest and Marshall placed within the top 16 middle school teams in the nation, earning each school a $1,000 check for their science programs.

“Morgantown and North Allegheny high schools were ready to compete. Unfortunately, they narrowly missed advancing to the double-elimination round,” Mechling said.  

For more than three decades, NETL has sponsored regional science bowl contests for middle and high school students in West Virginia and western Pennsylvania. The annual competition is designed to spark interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) and encourage students to explore careers in energy and other STEM-related fields.

The 2023 National Science Bowl high school champion was Lexington High School from Lexington, Massachusetts. The middle school champion was BASIS Independent Bellevue in Bellevue, Washington. Forty-seven middle school and 68 high school teams completed at the national competition.

NETL is a U.S. Department of Energy national laboratory that drives innovation and delivers technological solutions for an environmentally sustainable and prosperous energy future. By leveraging its world-class talent and research facilities, NETL is ensuring affordable, abundant, and reliable energy that drives a robust economy and national security, while developing technologies to manage carbon across the full life cycle, enabling environmental sustainability for all Americans.