Brain Bowl

Brain Bowl is an academic competition in which Florida Community College teams are pitted against one another. Teams consist of up to six players, only four of whom play at any given time. A moderator reads questions from four subject areas including humanities, mathematics, natural science and social sciences. Each area is equally represented. A buzzer system is used to identify the player who answers first. Ten points are awarded for correctly answering the tossup question. The team winning the tossup is eligible to win up to 30 points for correctly answering the follow-up bonus questions. After 44 questions, the team that has accumulated the most points wins the game. No questions about popular culture or media are used in Brain Bowl.

Florida Brain Bowl Purpose

The purpose of Brain Bowl competition is to recognize outstanding student academic achievement, to help focus community interest on academic excellence in Florida community colleges and to help foster relations among faculty and students as they work together on this joint project.

History and Scholarships

Florida Brain Bowl was created in the fall of 1981 and until 1991 was a joint project of the Florida State Department of Education and the Florida College System Activities Association (FCSAA). Since 1991, the FCSAA has been the sole sponsor of the Brain Bowl.

After initially gaining the approval and support of the Florida Community College Council of Presidents, the fall of 1981 was spent developing rules and organizing regional competitions. The cash awards for the initial year came from a combination of funds from the legislative appropriation that established the Program to Recognize Initiative and Distinction in Education (PRIDE) and more than $12,000 that the founders of the Brain Bowl competition were able to raise from private sources.

Since its inception in 1981, the Florida Community Colleges Brain Bowl competition has involved more than 1,000 students in regional and state competitions. During that time, the Florida Department of Education has awarded more than $80,000 to community college students who have competed in these tournaments. Private colleges and universities, as well as state supported universities, have made available almost $1 million worth of scholarship opportunities. Each year the host school records the Championship match for future broadcast to the television viewers in the State of Florida.