The 2007-08 Andover High School Science Team took the first place trophy in the North Shore Science League this year.
AHS came out on top through monthly science competitions, held at different league member schools throughout the year. There are 28 teams competing and Andover was in first place for the entire year.
The team is comprised of members Tianyi Chen, Alex Macheras, Ken Schumacher, Tejen Shah, John Koo, Peter Anderson, Srijohn Bhunia, Hannah Gravius, Amy Xiao, Simon Ye, Chaitanya Sambangi, Hanyin Cheng, Emily Hsieh and Mitch Slovin.
Competitions consist of three different events each month, in which groups of four students prepare and work together. The events vary from physics, including building events; chemistry; biology; Earth science; "Instant Inventions," and general science topics. Events have included building a mouse-trap car that would travel the greatest distance in a straight line, identifying rocks and minerals, recognizing North American mammals from tracks, scat, skulls and other significant characteristics and identifying chemical unknowns through experimentation.
The member schools range from Watertown to the south, Cape Elizabeth, Maine in the north, Andover to the west and Swampscott to the east. Each school usually brings at least 12 students to each competition and events are written and run by the faculty coach for each team. Some schools actually have elective classes for science team preparation. Andover does not, so this is an extracurricular activity with students preparing for events on their own time.
The coaches, Deb Burch and Jane Sonntag, facilitate the assignment of each event and help the students prepare for competition. They also have created and/or written several events each year.
The AHS team has been in existence for almost 20 years and ranks within the top five schools consistently.
The team also won three of the six individual awards for the year. Andover placed first in biology, physics and earth science.
In the past, the team has participated in the state science olympiad. In the 2005-06 school year the team also won first place overall.
There have been consistently between 20 and 24 students involved in the team each year, ranging from freshman to seniors. The team captain this year is Amy Xiao.
— submitted to the Townsman by Jane Sonntag, AHS Science Team co-advisor and biology teacher, AHS science department
