Knowing quotes from famous novels and memorizing all of the names of US presidents may seem like a lot of work, but the BSM Knowledge Bowl team members find satisfaction in learning.

The Knowledge Bowl team is a club open to all students who like the challenge of finding new facts, memorizing history, or simply learning more about subjects that interest them. The team, consisting of about thirty students, is meant to be enjoyable for busy students and does not require a huge time commitment. “Around twenty five to thirty people sign-up, but we do it in a really casual way, so on any given practice day, maybe ten to fifteen people show up to practice,” team adviser and history teacher Ms. Megan Kern said.

Eliminating an audition process helps to keep the club open to all interested students and shows that you don’t need to be the smartest in order to be on the team. Filling a spot on the team requires only the love of knowledge and a dedication to learning. “You just sign-up and you’re on the team,” Kern said. “Depending on how much you know, that determines whether you’re on Junior Varsity or Varsity,” Kern said.

The teams compete against schools within their section at knowledge bowl meets. The team usually competes in three competitions every season. “Whoever is in our section shows up there to compete. We have teams like Holy Angels, Spring Lake Park, Chaska and Eden Prairie in our section,” Kern said.

In order to prepare for their meets, the teams practice every Tuesday and Thursday after school for about an hour. These practices help team members learn more possible questions that could be asked at meets. The Knowledge Bowl team members expand their minds in significant ways in order to prepare for possible competition questions.  “A lot of [Knowledge Bowl’s] questions are math and science. They also get some history questions,” Kern said.

Because of the advanced subject matter covering math, science, and history, upperclassmen tend to score higher in meets. “Usually the older kids do better because they have taken AP Biology, AP [European History], Physics; you know those kinds of classes that expose them to those different kinds of topics,” Kern said.

By participating in Knowledge Bowl, students learn how to work together to learn new, exciting pieces of information. “I think that it teaches a little camaraderie with a group of kids. Whoever’s on your team, you have to work with them to answer questions,” Kern said.