By Cory Sparks, Sports Editor
On Dec. 15, 2018, Indian Trail High School & Academy hosted its first ever Science Olympiad Invitational. In addition to the obvious learning experience, this event offered students a chance to explore new fields of science and career paths.
“Science Olympiad is a team competition where students can compete in different events all pertaining to various scientific disciplines,” said Kiya Adam, IT senior and club president.
Present at the event were teams representing Harborside Academy, Lakeview Technology Academy, and Indian Trail High School.
When it came to the inspiration for joining Science Olympiad, the idea of finding those who express similar preferences in scientific topics seemed to coax some of the members into giving the club a try.
“I was a freshman when I joined and I’ve always been interested in science and technology,” said Dave Patel, a Medical Sciences Academy junior. “I heard about this over the announcements, and so I decided to join because I didn’t really know anyone so I thought it’d be a great way to meet people who have similar interests as I do.”
At the invitational itself, there were numerous categories that each member could compete in depending on their personal strengths.
“We have events ranging from chem lab to code analysis,” said Adam.
Science Olympiad team members get the choice of hand-picking the events they feel the most confident in.
In terms of the difficulty level for each scientific event, it’s pretty much luck of the draw. Each Science Olympiad member is expected to prepare for just about anything seeing that there is a plethora of possibilities when it comes to the rigor of their competition.
“Every competition is different. So at an invitational, your test might be super easy and at another one it’s just like different material,” said Sarah Plutchak, club vice president. “Depending on where you go, the tests are completely different so you’ve got to be ready for that.”
As for what a competitor can do to make sure that they are ready, there’s not always a specific set of content that one needs to cover.
There’s a vast variety of information, so the teams have to be on their A-game in terms of preparation.
“It’s not like they give you set notes or give you a certain textbook. You have to find things related to the topic, and then you build off of that and take tests on it,” said Patel.
The members enjoy this challenge though; it pushes them to put their heads together and think beyond what they normally learn in school.
“My favorite thing about Science Olympiad has to be the people, and just learning new things that I wouldn’t normally learn in a classroom setting,” said Plutchak.
Although scores were not kept at this invitational (seeing that this was the first one), Indian Trail’s Science Olympiad team will be competing at the state competition at the University of Wisconsin Stout on March 15 and 16