TABC boys take grand prize in Yeshiva Science Olympiad: For second year, local yeshiva leads in applied and theoretical science contest

Students from Torah Academy of Bergen County in Teaneck won first place in last month’s Yeshiva Science Olympiad, part of a national science competition designed to test students’ abilities in science, technology, and engineering. This is the second year in a row that TABC came in first in its division.

Because it measures not just classroom aptitude but applied knowledge, the day-long competition includes tasks like building model electronic cars and towers as well as traditional paper and pencil tests.

“If you like to compete it’s good for you, because you can use your academic smarts and whatever you are best at, and you can find your place to shine,” said TABC senior and winning team co-captain Gavi Dov Hochsztein, 18.

Co-captain Yakir Forman, 17 and a TABC senior, added, “It was a lot of fun — pretty informative. It’s a good team-building exercise too.”

Eleven teams competed in this division, which was created for yeshiva high school students in 2003 because the National Science Olympiad, the nationwide competition of which this contest is a part, typically schedules its events on Saturdays. Observant Jewish students could not participate.

Then Linda Padwa, a former high school science teacher, teamed up with Judy Oppenheim of the Jewish Education Project and approached the national organization to start a yeshiva division to meet on Sundays. (Because her grandchildren are Orthodox, Padwa wanted to make sure they would be eligible to compete.)

With the JEP’s sponsorship, the yeshiva division has been operating for nearly a decade.

Any Jewish day school can enter a team of 15 students in grades nine through 12, with a maximum of seven 12th-graders, the rest underclassmen. Teams come with two coaches, usually their science teachers. Teams spend weeks preparing for the competition, which took place this year on March 6.

For the first time this year, Touro College’s Lander College for Men hosted and co-sponsored the project with the JEP.

Students are told in advance what the competition will consist of and they have several weeks to prepare, according to Joel Berman, a physics and chemistry teacher at TABC and the winning team’s coach.

Berman stressed his team’s independent work ethic.

“I leave them alone in the lab and say, ‘You conquer these problems on your own.… If you have problems I am always available,’” said Berman. He added, “These guys like to develop the muscles between their ears.”

This entry was written by Heather Robinson and posted on April 9, 2011 at 2:53 pm and filed under Features. permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Keywords: . Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. */?>