On March 13, the Our Mother of Sorrows Catholic School Varsity Science Olympiad team won first place at the state championships in Phoenix. We competed against 24 other middle school teams.
We have won the last three Arizona state championships. We are now going to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign May 20-22 for the national tournament. There will be 61 teams in our division competing from all over the United States. We are all excited at the chance to represent Arizona.
In the Science Olympiad, teams of 15 students compete in 23 events. Each event is science-related and challenges us mentally and physically. We competed in events such as solar system, meteorology, ecology and fossils.
Then there was junkyard, where four mousetraps are set off according to specified rules. Pentathlon is an event of four kids doing physical and academic challenges, with the winning team completing the activities correctly and with the fastest time.
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The state championships - with one night and one day of competing - were exciting. We had an awards ceremony at the end of the day, where individual event winners were given medals for first through third places and ribbons to 10th place. Gift cards were given to some winners to celebrate the 25th year of Science Olympiad.
So if you like building bridges, making airplanes, learning about electricity, birds, chemistry and many other scientific fields, then Science Olympiad may be something you would like to do. Check out the Science Olympiad Web site at soinc.org to learn more about the Science Olympiad and how your school can start a team.
See you next year at the state championships.
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