New York, Feb. 13, 2009 - The 2009 New York City Regional Brain Bee took place at New York University’s Kimmel Center yesterday. With 38 students representing 23 schools throughout the five boroughs and Westchester, the competition proved to be a day of firsts.
Two visually impaired students competed for the first time from the New York Institute for Special Education, with the help of specialized Braille computers. This year’s Brain Bee also marked the most participation from Westchester, which had four students representing two schools in the competition.
And in the school’s second year of participating, a student from the Institute for Collaborative Education—senior Rebecca Ehrhardt—won the competition.
Anxious students did some last minute studying as they awaited the start of the competition. Students are selected by their high schools to compete in eight rounds of brain-related questions taken from Brain Facts, a book published by The Society for Neuroscience, which, with NRTA: AARP’s Educator Community, cosponsors the event.
Each round has five questions, and students must answer a predetermined number of questions correctly in order to proceed to the next round. In the second part of the competition, students are eliminated after they accumulate three wrong answers.
This year’s Brain Bee was judged by Dana Alliance member Joseph E. LeDoux, Ph.D., who is the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science, and a member of the Center for Neural Science, at New York University. He was joined by Linnaea E. Ostroff, Ph.D., and Daniela Schiller, Ph.D., both postdoctoral fellows at New York University. This is Dr. LeDoux’s third time judging the competition. “It’s great to be around the kids and see them so excited about the brain,” LeDoux said.
In the final round, four students remained before Ashley Jabar of Queens Gateway to Health Science Secondary School was eliminated, leaving the top three. In the end, Ehrhardt, 17, came in first. Ehrhardt, who placed third in last year’s competition, said she used twice as many note cards to study this time around.
Kashyap Rajagopal, 16, a junior at Stuyvesant High School, hung in for 10 questions before he placed third. Koryalys Edwards, 15, a sophomore at Queens Gateway to Health Science Secondary School, placed second.
For placing third, Rajagopal won $100. “It was a really exhilarating experience,” he said. “At first you feel anxious but then you get into it.”
Second-place winner Edwards was awarded $150. “I feel really happy and surprised,” said Edwards. “I just read my book [Brain Facts] and studied and did my best.” Edwards said she would like to attend medical school some day.
For coming in first, Ehrhardt will receive an all-expenses paid trip to the University of Maryland, where she will compete in the National Brain Bee, to be held March 20-21. Ehrhardt also won $250 and is deciding how to spend her winnings. “I might spend the money on concert tickets or on neuroscience books.” |