HAHIRA – A team of Valwood middle school students placed second in their first-ever regional competition for the 2022 National Science Bowl against 14 other private and public-school teams from around Georgia. 

Team members are Winter Simpson, Olivia Shen, Kennedy Paylo, Haley Hardy and Kreea Chakraborty, school officials said in a statement. The Valiants are coached by Middle School Science teacher Nina Hinson.

“The National Science Bowl brings together thousands of middle and high school students from across the country to compete in a fast-paced question-and-answer format where they solve technical problems and answer questions on a range of science disciplines including biology, chemistry, Earth and space sciences, physics, and math,” school officials said.

Today, the NSB annually draws more than 14,700 middle and high school competitors. Since the first competition in 1991, approximately 325,000 students have faced off in the National Science Bowl finals. 

“The knowledge that former competitors have acquired and, more importantly, the collaborative skills and study habits that they learned along the way, have led them to successes in a variety of fields,” school officials said. “Many have become researchers; others are science and math professors.”