MVMMS Eighth Graders Top All Middle Schoolers in MIT Science Challenge

Last year as 7th Graders, they just wanted to do respectably in the MIT Science Trivia Challenge. This year, the now 8th Graders of the "Higgs Boson" Team from MVMMS topped all middle school teams in winning one of the Grand Prizes, the opportunity to dine with a Nobel Prize winning Laureate.

Team members Nate Shu (Captain), Rose Meier, Ryan Bradford, Adam Cook and Jacob Russet combined their collective knowledge in a true team effort that got them into the final round and then capturing the Middle School prize in the 7th annual edition of this entertaining competitiion on April 17, 2013. With MIT Physics Professor Walter Lewin moderating the event, the MVMMS team nailed such questions as:

1) Before a star goes supernova, there are serial fusion reactions
that combine lighter elements to form heavier ones. What is the
heaviest element formed by fusion in the stars?

2) It has been been used for centuries and is still used today to make
non-absorbable surgical sutures. It is used to make holograms. Name
this naturally-produced wonder-material.

17 teams (Middle & High School) competed in this year's Youth
Division, with 9 Middle School teams competing. As their prize, the
Higgs Boson team of MVMMS chose to dine with Nobel prize-winner
physicist Jerome Friedman. We are sure this bright, inquisitive team
from Melrose will have plenty of questions for him! 

P.S. Did you get the Answers to those tough science questions? (1: Iron; 2: Silk).