Photo by Jack Dempsey, National Science Bowl®, Department of Energy, Office of Science

WHAT IS SCIENCE BOWL?

Science bowl is a buzzer-based academic competition testing students on their knowledge in each discipline of science.

The competition began in 1991 under the National Science Bowl® (NSB), run by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. Each year, NSB runs regional competitions across the country that each send one team to the national competition, held each year in Washington, D.C.

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, NSB changed its format to better suit virtual competitions. In response, many competitors began organizing their own tournaments in order to return to the traditional buzzer-based format.

Photo by Jack Dempsey, National Science Bowl®, Department of Energy, Office of Science

During the competition, a moderator reads questions to the teams, which compete to answer the most. There are two types of questions: toss-ups and bonuses.

On toss-ups, a question is read to both teams. To answer, a player must buzz in, and can do so at any time–even during the question. Players need to be careful, though: if the player interrupts the question incorrectly, they may lose points. Teams cannot communicate during toss-ups.

The team that correctly answers the toss-up is given a bonus, in which the team is read a question and discusses to come up with one answer. The team then gives their answer to the moderator without buzzing in.

HOW TO PLAY

Photo by Jack Dempsey, National Science Bowl®, Department of Energy, Office of Science

  1. Practice. Get used to the format using past questions from Prometheus or NSB and discover your team’s strengths and weaknesses.

  2. Study. Without knowledge, it’s impossible to do well. Many players use textbooks to absorb knowledge quickly; see NSB’s textbook recommendations here.

  3. Compete. Sign up for a local tournament or set up a scrimmage with nearby teams. If you’re not sure how, you can always find teams online through our Discord!

PREPARE

FAQs

  • Teams are composed of players from the same high school or equivalent institution. While most teams are in the United States, Prometheus is open to teams from any country. Prometheus allows teams of 3-5 students, while NSB requires 4-5 students.

  • All you need is a team (see above) and you’re ready to compete. Prometheus intends to have a very low bar for competing at practice tournaments in order to be as inclusive as possible. To compete in the National Science Bowl®, teams need to find a teacher or parent coach and, for some regionals, pay a registration fee.

  • Check out past question packets! Ignis roughly matches the difficulty of NSB’s regional competitions. Early questions should be answerable with knowledge from regular or AP high school classes, while later questions test knowledge typically found in college classes.

  • For the 2023-24 season, we expect Ignis tournaments to run in January and February, with top teams competing at Olympus in April. NSB’s regional competitions typically run from mid-January to mid-March with nationals in late April. Other competitions are often run online throughout the school year, but details vary from year to year.