On March 17, Dunbar’s academic team competed at the statewide Governor’s Cup and placed fourth overall. The Governor’s Cup recognizes and awards the exemplary academic achievements of students. Over 2000 students and 1200 schools attend the annual Governor’s Cup each year. The Dunbar team participated in quick recall, composition, math, and science.

“Quick recall is sort of what it sounds like. You have questions with different clues and facts and you are supposed to recall an answer that fits all the different clues and facts,” senior David Ma said.

In this event, students must answer before the opposing team does or the clock runs out.

The quarterfinalists for quick recall from Dunbar were sophomore Aneesh Kadambi, juniors Angus Maske, Max Bograd, and Shashank Bhatt, and seniors David Ma and Zsombor Gal.

The written assessments are multiple choice exams that students can take in any of five subjects: math, science, social studies, language arts and arts and humanities.

Sophomore Stephen Yin placed second, Bhatt placed fourth and junior Austin Li placed eighth in math. Bhatt also placed third in science.

In the composition event, students are given a writing prompt to be completed in 90 minutes. Seniors Jin Cho and Madi Halwes, juniors Megan Slusarewicz, Eleanor Liu, Olivia Tussey, and Andy Du, sophomore Reka Gal, and freshman Jocelyn Chen will be advancing to the competed in composition and will be advancing to the international competition in June.

The final event Dunbar students competed in was community problem-solving where they earned first place. In this event, students work in a teams to address a problem in the local or state community.

“This year the team decided to tackle the disappearance of bees and raising awareness with that for elementary and middle schoolers,” Ma said.

Students on the team said that their experience is not just fun, it also promotes further study in areas of interest.

“It definitely helps academically,” Maske said. “While I’ll still have to learn that topic more in-depth in class just having a basic foundation can be a huge help because it serves as sort of a head start.”