Mount Sinai High School wins Bay Scallop Bowl
A team from Mount Sinai High School took first place last month in the 2018 Bay Scallop Bowl held at Stony Brook University. Credit: Joseph Dlhopolsky
A Mount Sinai High School team has taken the top spot in this year’s Bay Scallop Bowl.
The five-student team — Clare Dana, Joshua Goodman, Julia McElheron, Arielle Mulé and Johnathan Yu — beat out 11 other tristate-area teams to place first in the “Jeopardy!”-style competition, which tests knowledge of oceanography and related sciences. It was conducted at Stony Brook University.
For winning, Mount Sinai’s team members each received $250 and the team qualified for the National Ocean Sciences Bowl in Colorado on April 19-22. The school has won the local bowl 10 of the past 17 years.
Teams from Huntington and Massapequa high schools placed second and third, respectively.
“This year, we sweated it out,” Mount Sinai coach Glynis Nau-Ritter said. Of her team, she said: “They’re a wonderful group with a lot of potential.”
The competition featured a morning round-robin format in which teams were separated into divisions to determine seedings based upon overall records and points. The afternoon session consisted of a double-elimination playoff bracket.
Huntington’s second-place team members — Erin Bonitz, Katherine Burton, Christiana DeLuca, Michael McCooey and Noah Morris — each received $100.
Massapequa’s third-place team received tickets and behind-the-scenes passes to the Long Island Aquarium in Riverhead.
MIDDLE ISLAND/SAYVILLE
Schools to Watch
Longwood Junior High School and Sayville Middle School are the only Suffolk County schools among 21 statewide identified as “2018 Essential Elements: Schools to Watch” by the New York State Education Department and the New York State Middle School Association.
The program recognizes schools that demonstrate continuous improvement and excel in four domains: academic excellence, developmental responsiveness, social equity and organizational structure. Schools hold the designation for three years, then must reapply and be reevaluated.
This is the second and fourth time, respectively, that Longwood and Sayville have earned the re-designation.
COUNTYWIDE
Olympic learning
Many local schools hosted educational activities last month themed around the 2018 Winter Olympics.
In Mastic Beach, William Floyd Elementary School hosted an opening ceremony of its own, complete with a parade of nations and cauldron lighting. Student Council president Ava Cusimano recited the Olympic Creed and teachers Desirae Francis and Brinna O’Hara played Olympic mascots Bandabi and Soohorang.
In Stony Brook, fifth- and sixth-graders at W.S. Mount Elementary School participated in the school’s first STEM Olympics, which included activities such as building load-bearing towers and constructing skiers from foil and Popsicle sticks.
In Smithtown, Accompsett Elementary School held a mock Olympic Games in which teams engaged in relay-style events and team-building activities at Smithtown High School West.
ISLANDWIDE
Students of the Year
Twenty local students are candidates in this year’s Students of the Year campaign coordinated by the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Long Island Chapter. The campaign challenges them to raise the most money for blood cancer research in a seven-week span.
The students and their high schools are: Hunter Howard and Maya Montalto, Babylon; Anna Kearns, Bayport-Blue Point; Gabby Sennert, Division Avenue; Rosana Gest and Avery Schwartz, Half Hollow Hills West; PJ Darmody, Kellenberg; Ashley Gordon and Avi Nessim, North Shore Hebrew Academy; Maddie Girard and Casey Roszko, Manhasset; Marissa Schneider, Syosset; Jillian Bove and Ally Szema, Ward Melville; Maegan Herman, Kelly Mulvey and Danielle Spencer, Wellington C. Mepham; Eric Donohue, West Babylon; Farah Hasan and Tiffany Jiao, Wheatley School.
The student or student group raising the most will receive a $2,500 college scholarship.— MICHAEL R. EBERT
Michael R. Ebert is an education researcher and has worked for Newsday in various capacities since 2003. He was part of an 11-person team named as 2008 Pulitzer Prize finalists for investigative coverage of the LIRR's platform safety issues.
