Academic Superbowl co-sponsors Matt Dillon and James Ziegler have “given the reigns” to their student participants in terms of learning the material and preparing for the upcoming competitions, scheduled to take place in early March.

Recently, the team captains, along with their respective teams, met with Dillon and reviewed some of the source material and developed a general plan for the competition. After hosting the first team meeting of the second semester, Dillon said he hopes to have the subject squads meet approximately every two weeks in February.

“As a team, I think we’re all getting excited for the upcoming competitions; we’re ready to test our skill,” Dillon said. “It’s always interesting to see how you do. You never quite know what’s going to happen until you get there. I just hope our kids live up to the expectations they have placed upon themselves.”

Similarly, Katie Doman, Academic Superbowl participant and sophomore, said, “The next few weeks are all about learning the material and making sure that, collectively, we’ve all got it down. So we’re reading, reading again and re-reading what we re-read.”

While there are many opportunities to study with only the informational packets provided, Doman noted that Indiana Association of School Principals (IASP), the corporation responsible for organizing the event, offers specialized study guides pertaining to each respective subject. The IASP also provides practice questions on its website, which are free, and written by the same question writers as the competition questions. In addition, coaches have the ability to purchase additional practice questions from the Lowell Academic Booster Club.

According to Dillon, the next few weeks will host many opportunities for students to carefully review the subject material, as the first Invitational period is not scheduled to take place until late February. In terms of the structural format of the first competition, the Senior Division competition will be made up of five subject matter rounds in the following order: Fine arts, social studies, math, English and science. A sixth interdisciplinary round in which questions may come from any and all of the subject matter rounds will follow. Therefore, each Senior Division team is made up of six squads; each squad consisting of no more than five students. However, the interdisciplinary squad may consist of up to seven students. In addition, any given student may compete on a maximum of two subject area squads and may also compete on the interdisciplinary squad.