Cooper Ethics Bowl Team wins first place at Regionals, qualifies for National Competition

THE WOODLANDS, Texas - Two Upper School Ethics Bowl teams from The John Cooper School competed for the third consecutive year at the Houston High School Ethics Bowl that was held at Rice University on February 6.

The team consisting of seniors Hannah Weinstein, Natalie Sos, Ramsha Asim and David McDonald, finished in first place, qualifying them to move on to the National High School Ethics Bowl competition that will be held at The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill on April 15 and 16.

Ethics Bowl is a competition in which students gather to discuss ethical issues and compete in offering arguments for the positions they take. The competitors are judged on their ability to offer articulate, well-informed, and reasonable arguments. Teams participate in multiple rounds of head-to-head competition before a panel of three judges made up of university faculty, graduate students and community members.

Cooper's second team consisted of Mark Flanagan, Cameron Garrison, Spencer Katterhagen, Nina Rivela, Gina Valderrama, Jack Whitney, and Isabel Sands. They won close matches against St. John's School and The Woodlands High School, only losing to the Cooper senior team.

"We are very proud of our students," said Adam Valenstein who is faculty advisor along with fellow English teacher Jay Gowen. "The students showcased their intelligence and poise in the intense atmosphere of the competition."

Valenstein is also the sponsor of a Middle School team made up of seventh and eighth grade students that participated in the first Middle School Ethics Bowl in the nation last spring and hosted a second in October. The Ethics Bowl actively promotes philosophical ethics while emphasizing the need for civil discourse in our society.


Established in 1988, The John Cooper School is a Pre-K through Grade 12 independent, college preparatory school that has a current enrollment of 1,200 students. www.johncooper.org