Science club places third at Science Olympiad

Thirty two members of the science club advised by Erin Sliwinski attended the Science Olympics on March 26 held at UNI, and this year the team won first place in six different events against 22 different teams from around the state. 

The individual event placements for each team are combined for an overall team ranking. Cedar Falls won first place in six different events: cell biology, chemistry lab, environmental chemistry, green generation, trajectory and disease detectives, as well as third place in four events: anatomy and physiology, astronomy, experimental design and disease detectives. The team placed third overall as a team against the schools participating from around the state. 

Science club member Ian Hitchman said, “Within the competition there are lots of events ranging from chemistry labs to ornithology tests and  building gravity vehicles. I feel like our team performed quite well overall; of course, there is always room for improvement as this is a new club to many of us at the high school, but we have team spirit and brought good attitudes with us to the competition.” 

Sliwinski said, “Students prepare for each event by reading the rules for their events, studying, making cheat sheets and building devices ahead of time. Sometimes they work together at Power Hour; sometimes they work outside of school together.”

For most events, two students participated from each team, so each of the students ended up participating in three to four different events throughout the day. Students could win medals for individual events, and the individual event placements for each team were combined for an overall team ranking.