Imagine this: it is April 2022. It has been a few weeks since the day of your competition. You’d usually have your competition in Reno or UNLV, but this year was different. Because of COVID restrictions, you had to stay in an empty room in your school on a Saturday morning, and you had to do the competition only using your computer. You’ve been waiting for this moment for months. You’re watching a video of the competition results, and it’s time that the schools are decided for the National competition in May. Whatever school gets chosen gets to compete with the whole country in just a few months. Third place shows up. It’s not your school. Second place pops up onto the screen. It’s, once again, not your school. 

You wait anxiously for first place. You sit in silence. Finally, the first place winner is revealed—it’s your school! You jump up ecstatic! You’re going to Nationals! You are so proud of yourself and the work you have done within these past few months. What was it that you won? The Science Olympiad Nevada State competition, of course. But what even is Science Olympiad? Why do people join, and what do they do? 

Science Olympiad is a non-profit organization that focuses on different aspects of science. In Science Olympiad, students from middle and high schools all over the nation read and research the different areas of science they want to discover. Towards the end of the school year, these students compete with others in the same level as them, and, if they work hard enough, they can get medals for their areas of science and even trophies for their school. 

Not every school has Science Olympiad. However, we happen to have our own school team, in which we compete in State and National competitions at the end of the year. From September to May, people who choose to join Science Olympiad practice multiple days a week and dedicate some of their time after school to the club. Science Olympians are currently working for the upcoming State competition on March 25, which is taking place in UNLV. These teams from our school will go to represent Bob Miller and will compete not just with the rest of Las Vegas, but with the whole state of Nevada, and only one school’s Varsity team will go on to represent Nevada in Nationals. 

According to their website, Science Olympiad’s mission is to play a part in “improving the quality of K-12 science education, increasing opportunity and diversity in science, creating a technologically-literate workforce and providing recognition for outstanding achievement by both students and teachers.” The organization was first made on March 29, 1982 in Macomb County, Michigan by science educators Dr. Gerard J. Putz and John C. Cairns. After two “workshops” that happened in Michigan in the years 1982 and 1983, two successful tournaments took place at Lawrence Institute of Technology in April 1983 and Oakland University in May 1984. Because these tournaments were so successful, Dr. Putz and Mr. Cairns decided to share Science Olympiad with the whole United States. An organization that was once first introduced to the Council of State Science Supervisors in the NSTA (National Science Teachers Association) turned into something that was sponsored by the United States Army Recruiting Command. The first National Tournament was held in May 1985. Only 17 out of the 50 states participated. Now, hundreds of schools in all 50 states participate. 

There are around 44 students in Bob Miller's Science Olympiad total, with those on Teams B and C only competing for individual medals and only taking part in the State competiton, and with Team A, also known as the Varsity team, being the team that represents Bob Miller in State and Nationals. Science Olympiad comprises 3 divisions, but two of them are the most mentioned. Division A is the elementary school division, where there isn't as much competition. According to the Science Olympiad Student Center website, also known as Scioly, a website used for information about Science Olympiad, “In this division, non-competitive Fun Days and Fun Nights are run for all grades, and Competitive Tournaments are run for grades 3-6.” 

Division B, the division our school is in, is the middle school division. There is more competition at this level, and the division is for 6th to 9th graders. According to Scioly, “Out of the fifteen students on the team, a maximum of five members can be in 9th grade. All students on the team must be from the membership school, with the exception of five members who attended the school the previous year. This is to accommodate for middle schools which may not have 8th or 9th grade students.” Division C, the highest division, is for students in high school, from 9th to 12th grade. Only seven out of the fifteen in a team can be in 12th grade. 

Both divisions have similar events, and some events can have the same concept but just be under different names, such as Crime Busters and Forensics. However, there are also different events too. For example, in Division B, there is Bio-Process Lab, Crave the Wave, and Roller Coaster, while there is Cell Biology, Detector Building, and WiFi Lab in Division C. There are 23 events in each division that students from the teams can participate in. All 50 states have state Science Olympiad teams, and some states have two, such as California. Not all schools in these states have Science Olympiad teams, and it is voluntary for them to join. 

There are 5 categories that events fall into according to the official Science Olympiad website, and these include Life, Personal and Social Science, Earth and Space Science, Physical Science and Chemistry, Technology and Engineering, and Inquiry and Nature of Science. The events can also be generalized into three categories: Knowledge, Lab/Hands-On, and Build. The Knowledge events are primarily written, and they require students to learn extensively on a certain subject, whether that would be climate change or anatomy, in which they answer certain questions about that topic during the competition. The Lab/Hands-On events require students to do some type of experiment or experiments on-site, in which they answer questions related to their experiments and the results of them in competition. As Ms. Tingey, a 7th grade science teacher and head advisor of Science Olympiad for our school, said, “We practice ahead of time on things they might have to do like use lab equipment like microscopes, scales, graduated cylinders and such, as well as write directions or follow directions to solve a problem or a mystery. This includes things like Can't Judge a Powder (focus on chemistry), Crime Busters (using science and the tools provided to solve the mystery) and Write It Do It where one partner writes the directions to complete a task and the other partner has to follow the directions. They are scored on how good their directions are as well as how they were followed. It takes teamwork!” The last one of the three are the Build events, which require you to build a machine or structure months before the competition, in which you are tested on how well your machine does in different tests and whether the machine or structure fits all the requirements. 

According to Ms. Tingey, Science Olympiad started in our school in Fall 2017 with the help of her and Mrs. Khachikian, Ms. Karczewski, Ms. Strait, and Mrs. Arnone. The first competition that our school participated in was during Spring of 2018 in Reno. Bob Miller won 3rd place in the 2018 Nevada State competition, 1st place in 2019, and won 1st once again in 2022. In our school, there are three different sub teams: Team A, Team B, and Team C. “The only difference between the teams is that Team A is our designated team for the team competition,” said Ms. Tingey. “Only one team from each school is designated as the competition team. That is the team that is scored as a whole group to determine who gets to go to the national competition. Each student team is competing for individual event medals.” 

Science Olympiad became part of our school quite recently compared to other schools in the area such as Hyde Park Middle School, which had been participating in competitions since 2004. “We wanted to be able to show the scientific talent of our students,” said Ms. Tingey. “We had students that were leaving from the elementary schools and going to the magnet middle schools because they offered clubs and teams that we didn't have. One of those teams was Science Olympiad. There was no reason that we shouldn't have a team of our own.” 

The Science Olympiad teams are composed of students who work from the beginning of the school year to compete and win in the State and National competitions. “Roughly, I stay 3-4 days a week and I stay the whole time,” said Ishita Puppala, a 7th grade student on Team B. “To prepare for the state competition, I study and work with my partners and come up with strategies. For the lab events, I observe the experiments I do. For the study events, I research stuff that I don’t know, and I look online and on the Science Olympiad website to see what information there is. I look at the rules sheets. For the build events, I build things in Ms. Karczewski’s room and I stay on Saturdays to do 3 hours of building.” 

Science Olympiad is held in different science classrooms every day of the week and is held from the end of the school day until around 3. There are even Science Olympiad meetings on Saturdays held by Ms. Karczewski, which are usually from 9 AM to 12 PM. You can choose to come in and leave at any time, and it is voluntary to come in on Saturdays. In these meetings, Science Olympians can gather with their partners and work together to continue building something for their event or to work on their notes for the competition. People from all teams can come and work, and there are always the science teachers that you can ask if you need any help with your event. For the competition, there is a minimum of 3 events you need to do, but you can do 4 or even 5 if you choose to. “My events are Can’t Judge a Powder, Meteorology, and Experimental Design,” said Sahana Jeyapandian, an 8th grader on Team A. “I like Can’t Judge a Powder and Experimental Design because I enjoy coming up with tests and analyzing things and just being in the lab. I also enjoy Meteorology, since I really enjoy learning more about weather, climate, and how it would affect us.”

With the commitment that these olympians put into their work, it can take up some time throughout their day. “Science Olympiad is not hard to do if you’re well prepared,” said Ishita. “You always have to be well prepared for the events and it’s not meant to tell people what level of science they’re in. It’s meant to help them improve and be in a competition at the same time. It doesn’t take a lot of time. Let’s say someone has schoolwork: it does take at least 15 minutes a day, but it’s really really helpful and it helps you improve in school as well.”

In terms of the competition and how nerve wracking it can be, Sahana said that, “It is slightly nerve wracking, the idea that we’re competing in a statewide tournament that, if you win, could become a national tournament. But I know that, as long as I do my best, there’s nothing else I can do, and I studied and practiced, and I’m ready.” 

Doing Science Olympiad for the competition means dedicating some time after school to doing your work, and some may ask as to whether Science Olympiad is truly worth doing and how it can benefit them later on in their life. “What interests me about Science Olympiad is that I really like doing science, and I really enjoy learning new things and applying those to real life, and Science Olympiad allows you to do that and allows you to compete for something,” said Sahana. “It helps you learn a lot more, not just about science and the world, but also how to work with other people. When I grow up and I want to do something in the field of science, I can help people using the information I’ve learned, and, again, it also really helps with social skills and learning how to work with other people.” 

What people should know about Science Olympiad, according to Ms. Tingey, is that, “It is a whole team effort and it is a lot of work and preparation for a single day of competition. It isn't like sports where we have games every week. We compete on one day in 23 different events in teams of 2 or 3 people. This is our one and only shot at the title. In some of the big states or states that have a lot of teams, they go to more than one tournament because they have citywide, Regional and then State tournaments. Nevada just isn't that big.”

In the Science Olympiad club, you study different subjects related to science, and you prepare for the State and National competitions in March and May, respectively. Science Olympiad is for those K-12, and there are different divisions and teams, as well as unique events that you can choose from. Science Olympiad has been hosting National tournaments since 1985, however our school has only been part of Science Olympiad since 2017. The students in SciOly dedicate their time and energy to find out as much as they can about their science subjects and to win a gold medal later on, staying for an average of 3 days a week and spending an hour after school doing their work, despite having work from other classes. Anyone can join Science Olympiad starting from September, where Science Olympiad usually hosts an introductory meeting, which explains the club and teams further into detail.