The academic team has been a very successful team at GJHS. With being very successful it takes a lot work and dedication. The academic team is organized by Mr. Shawcroft, it’s open to all grades to join.

  In academic team, students compete with knowledge questions against other teams. “We compete in three different competitions, we play History Bowl, Knowledge Bowl, and NAQT,” Sol Adams, senior, said.

“In March, we go to Fort Collins on the 13th, and 14th to participate in Knowledge Bowl State Competition. In April, we’re going to be traveling to Washington D.C. to compete in History Bowl National Competition,” Adams said.

 On the academic team, you have JV and Varsity, just like a sport. These students practice and prepare for their competitions just as much as a sports team practices.

“We practice three times a week, for two hours. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we practice for knowledge bowl for two hours. Then on Mondays or Wednesdays, we practice for History bowl and NAQT. Sometimes we will even do Saturday practices, or we will have both Monday and Wednesday practices for History Bowl. Leading up to state, or bigger competitions, we usually run about 250 questions for Knowledge Bowl at least. And that takes us about two and a half hours. So we start practice at three, and we are done at 5:30,” Adams said.

There are different forms of the tests that the team takes when they compete. One of the forms is a written test. 

“These are another way of competing along with oral rounds which are another way we compete. Oral rounds have three teams, and you give oral answers, or you have written rounds. That’s when you have four people on a team who take a 60 question test, and you get points based on how well you do on that,” Adams said.