The Valley Catholic
catholic schools
CATHOLIC EDUCATION INSPIRES
St. Justin School competes in Scripps
Spelling Bee & National Geographic Bee
• The sixth annual St. Justin School
(Santa Clara) Spelling Bee was held
Jan. 9, with 18 students, grades 3-8 who
were finalists from their individual
class bees. School champion was Cailey
Larmore, grade 6, spelling ‘’Freudian’’
in the final round.
Seventh graders Kevin Bennett and
Jin-Hee Lee were runners-up. Next step
for Cailey is a written test in February
that will be taken with school winners
throughout the Bay Area.
• The first annual St. Justin School
National Geographic Bee was held, Jan.
14, 2014. Twelve finalists, grades 4-8,
competed for the school championship. Faculty, K-8 students, parents and
friends cheered on all the participants
who were finalists from their individual class bees.
After many rounds, two finalists
remained: Keegen Vogel, grade 7,
and Justin Polk, grade 8. Both boys
remained even and several championship tiebreaker questions were needed
Taking home title of National Geographic
Bee champion at St. Justin School was
Keegen Vogel.
to decide the winner!
Taking home the title of champion
was Keegen Vogel, who answered a
question correctly about The Donets Basin located in Russia and the
Ukraine. His next step is a written, multiple choice qualifying test to advance
to the state level. The National Scripps
Spelling Bee will be held in May, in
Washington, DC.
St. Simon School students compete in
VEX robotics tournament
St. Simon VEX robotics team members and mentors.
Two St. Simon Parish School robotics
teams participated in the Northern California Bay Area VEX IQ Tournament
in December having spent time with
peers and mentors building robotics
after school for several months.
When the competition ended, St.
Simon had qualified for the California
State Championships and the VEX
Robotics World Championships, scheduled for April in Anaheim.
The teams also received the Excellence Award, Team Championship
Award, Programming Skills Champion
Award, Robot Skills Champion Award,
STEM Research Project Award, and a
First Overall in Programming Award.
Eighth grader Rafael Pierry said,
“Robotics has been a great experience.
It has helped me see how everyday
math is used in the field of robotics and
computer science.”
Sixth grader Devon MontgomeryEder said, “Our first robotics competi-
tion was a blast! We didn’t know what
to expect and didn’t have much time to
get ready. We quickly came up with a
design and kept testing and improving
it at every meeting.”
St. Simon VEX Robotics team members in grades 4-8 include Kirk Baranowski, Michael Carbone, Philip
Christiansen, Andres Ibarra, Carolyn
Jung, Matthias Lai, Tommy Lawler,
Gianni Amarelle, Kier MendiburuPerez, Xavi Mendiburu-Perez, Devon
Montgomery-Eder, Rafael Pierry,
Hanna Ready, Atila Schreiber, Sam
Sherrill, and Dipashreya Sur.
The VEX IQ Challenge, presented by
the Robotics Education & Competition
Foundation www.robotevents.com,
i s a bra nd new STEM prog ra m
for elementary and middle school
students. The VEX IQ Challenge
encourages students to actively explore
science, technology, engineering and
mathematics.
February 11, 2014
knowledge .
11
St. Victor School
participates in
Scripps Spelling Bee
St. Victor School, San Jose, held its
Scripps National Spelling Bee, Jan. 16
when 10 students, grades 4 to 8, won the
opportunity to represent their class to
an audience of fellow students, teachers
and parents.
After several rounds there were
three finalists: Vivian Le, 8th grade;
Tenisha Ciby, 7th grade; and Divyanshi
Autade, 5th grade. Tenisha Ciby won and
will continue as she participates in the
written semifinal Spelling Feb. 22 at the
Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley.
Tenisha Ciby, 7th grader at St. Victor School,
competes in Spelling Bee.
Robotics tournament attracts 16 teams
to St. Lawrence Academy
St. Lawrence Academy robotics team
hosted a FIRST Lego League Robotics
Qualifying Tournament in November
for 16 teams of middle school students.
The FIRST Lego League is a branch of
FIRST Robotics (For Inspiration and
Recognition of Science and Technology).
Although the tournament has taken
place at St. Lawrence in previous years,
this was the firs Ёѥ