Economics teams win big

Kirsten Peterson
May 7, 2010
Filed under Features

The economics team has done it again. For the sixth straight year, ‘Iolani teams have swept the Hawaii State Economics Challenge. The event, held on April 14, included over 240 students from various Oahu schools.

In the David Ricardo division, senior Jordon Rubio and sophomores Stratford Goto, Kirsten Peterson, Iris Kuo, and Steven Yee, led by Mr. Richie Kibota, defeated the Kamehameha team to win.

Col. Richard K. Rankin led junior Mark Grozen-Smith and seniors Vladimir Bernstein, Sean Cockey, Andrew Ellison, and Jesse Franklin-Murdock to overcome the Maryknoll team in the Adam Smith division.

Students began by taking individual 20-minute, 15 question tests on Microeconomics and Macroeconomics. The contestants then worked as a team to turn in a single International/Current Events test. The team score for each section comprised of the top three individual scores for each test, except for the International/Current Events test, for which three to give each section even weighting multiplied the team score.

At the end of testing, the top-scoring teams from each division moved on to the buzzer round, or Quiz Bowl. Separate Quiz Bowls were held to determine third vs. fourth place and first vs. second. Due to the rule that only one team from each school was allowed to move forward into the buzzer rounds, ‘Iolani was only permitted to send one team from the Smith division into the Quiz Bowl, although ‘Iolani had the 3 highest scoring teams.

The Ricardo division differs from the Smith division in that Ricardo contestants are only permitted to have taken one semester of an economics course, whereas Smith contestants are typically AP Economics students.

Although the event was competitive, fun activities were also planned. Students were given an opportunity to meet new people, as tables typically consisted of students from many different schools. Raffles and games such as a scavenger hunt and “3 Truths and a Lie” were organized. All the teachers were given gifts as thanks for organizing the challenge.

Participant Winney Chan said, “It was fun to meet students from other schools, and the skills, quickness, and level of economics challenge that everyone had.”

Rachel Ki, commenting on the fact that other schools had a much larger showing than ‘Iolani did, said, “I think our teams put in a lot of effort and did really well, despite the extremely strong support our opposing teams had from their schools. Kamehameha alone had nearly 150 people.”

The winning Smith division team will now go on to represent Hawaii in an online regional competition on April 26. They will compete against teams from Arizona, California, Colorado, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. ‘Iolani teams have gone to nationals in New York for the past five years.

This year, for the first time, Ricardo division winners will not be allowed to compete either regionally or nationally due to a lack of funding in the program. However, if the Smith team does well, they will advance to nationals on May 23-24.