By Amelia Melo, Y11
For all history fanatics in our community, you will be pleased to hear about the International History Bee and Bowl (IHBB) competition which recently took place! IHBB is an international history competition composed of academic quizzes designed to test and further students’ knowledge of various aspects of history.
IHBB was founded in 2010, and over the past ten years has organized events in over 25 countries. The main objectives of IHBB are to allow students to display their academic potential, deepen their historical comprehension, and strengthen their sportsmanship skills.
A somewhat diverse event, with competitors tested on various subgenres of history such as the history of: art, science, philosophy, sports, etc. to provide a well-rounded array of questions.
Concerning the structure and how the yearly competition took place, there are two components of IHBB:
- A Bee which is carried out by individual competitors
- A Bowl where sportsmanship and cooperation is encouraged when teams must work together to answer as many questions correct as possible
The Bee employed with a buzzer system, in which participants must use a buzzer once they think they have the correct answer to each question. Once on has answered a certain number of questions correctly, a bonus is granted to them which can solidify a first-place finish. Once the first place winner has received the winning bonus, they are removed from the competition, where the remaining individuals will then continue answering questions in order to finish in 2nd place, 3rd place, etc.
As for the execution of the team Bowl, questions are divided into four different categories. The first three categories resemble those of the Bee questions, and consist of roughly 8-10 quick buzzer questions for each round, worth 10 points each. The last category was a quick-fire lightning round.
Regarding the strained situation due to the pandemic, the competition was hosted virtually, via GoogleMeet. Online buzzer systems and adult moderators were provided. The formatting of some categories of the competition also had to be modified: fewer points were needed for an individual to be removed from the Bee, the overall number of questions was reduced, and the format of the last category of questions for the Bowl had to be modified.
As for the results, the winners of the Team Bowl were:
- The Harrow School in London, England
- Ecolint Campus de Nations
- Ecolint LGB Campus
The outcomes of the individual Bee were:
- Ido Kong, a student from the Hebrew Reali School located in Israel in first place
- Daniel Coates, a student from Nations, finishing in second place
- Hendri Staehlin from the Zurich International School who finished third place
- Our fellow classmate here at LGB, Eli Bertuccioli, who finished in fourth place!
A big congratulations to all those who participated in the IHBB on behalf of LGB such as Eli Bertuccioli, Ian Jang, Sabine Ebanks, Ruikang Shi, and Maximilien Paul! Your sportsmanship and advocacy for history is highly appreciated.
If you wish to learn more about the IHBB or are considering participating in the next regional competition, feel free to visit their online website at https://www.ihbbeurope.com/about-2/
