By Brandon Nguyen & Lylyan Yenson
On March 20, Fountain Valley High School (FVHS) freshman Hannah Park and sophomores Ashley Do, Sarah Yoo and Dzinh Pham competed in the Academic WorldQuest (AWQ) competition and came in second overall against all Orange County high schools.
This year, the competition took place over Zoom and the FVHS team narrowly beat the third place team by one point in both rounds.
The AWQ is a competition where students answer questions based around international politics, geography, global economics and more.
The 10 topics chosen for this competition season were global protests, shifting sands: the Arab Spring 10 Years on, international labor organization, the US foreign service in the twenty-first century, great decisions, country in focus: Uzbekistan, exploring peace in a world of conflict, fraying alliances, looking to a post-pandemic economy and current events.
“The World Affairs council that hosts this competition works with the institute of peace in DC and their main goal is knowing about the world and bringing about understanding, communication and ultimately peace,” said history teacher Julie Chaicharee, who is the AWQ advisor.
FVHS students that competed in AWQ took the Advanced Placement Human Geography class, where Chaicharee selected them because of the promise, passion and willingness to learn that they showed throughout the year.
“Learning about conflicts around the world helped me to understand the painful, terrible and long-lasting effects that they can have on countries and people. It’s vital that we look for peaceful solutions,” Pham said.
Despite the team being made of younger members, each scholar put in the time and effort, enjoying each moment.
“My favorite part of this entire competition journey would have to be getting to see my teammates once the competition season started, whether that be on a late-night Zoom call or during the national competition in-person with Mrs. Chaicharee!” Do said.
Not only were they able to compete together, students were also able to learn more about worldwide topics and listen to other teams share their thoughts. AWQ taught them about a lot of things they normally wouldn’t experience.
“I was able to take a glimpse into current global issues, conversations and cooperation that are shaping the world today,” Park said. “I also learned the value of good teamwork, learning large amounts of material in short quantities of time, handling stress during challenges and winning humbly yet losing gracefully as well.”
Despite not getting first, the team members expressed their joy and gratitude for getting far within the competition and being able to advance to nationals.
“None of us could believe we had the chance to go to nationals…It feels like the world gets a little bigger because you learn to see our world from a different perspective after studying each topic,” Yoo said.
Fountain Valley’s AWQ team made it to the DC nationals, representing Orange County to compete against over 80 other teams that represented their prospective counties.
As of now, Fountain Valley has one assembled team and Chaicharee expects another team of four next year.
