National Science Bowl winners announced

WASHINGTON, May 4 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Energy says high school and middle school teams from California have won its 2009 National Science Bowl.

Officials said a team from Mira Loma High School in Sacramento defeated Lexington High School from Lexington, Mass., in the high school national championship match. In the middle school national championship competition, Hopkins Junior High School from Fremont, Calif., was victorious over Jonas Clarke Middle School of Lexington, Mass.

The event was held at the National Building Museum in Washington.

Members of the winning high school team were Edward Lee, Andrew Chen, Heather Yee, Rishi Kulkarni and Sriram Pendyala, along with coach James Hill. Members of the winning middle school team were Raghu Dhara, Audrey Huang, Margaret Shen, Hairuo Guo and Aditya Jung, with coaches Paul Ricks and Lorie Anderson.

The high school national champions will receive an all-expense-paid science research trip to the International Science School at the University of Sydney, Australia.

Each of the top 16 high school and 16 middle school teams received a cash prize for their school science department -- $1,000 for the high school teams and $500 for the middle school teams.

More than 500 students from 42 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands competed in the competition.