Hello Everyone,

I was curious if anyone out there had ever participated in the Science Olympiad tournament? The link to the web site is provided below.

Science Olympiad

We do not have a local site for our city listed in the regional tournaments unfortunately (under state websites/regional tournaments), and I wanted to know how hard to push DS's school to pursue this. I've been pestering his school quite a bit as of late, and I don't want to wear out my welcome unnecessarily. But this may be worth it! Does anyone have any recommendations? I'm hoping that, since there are several kids here who love science, someone may have heard of this. Oh, and I saw something on their web page about Home-schooling teams, too!

My daughter did this last year. She really enjoyed it. Sadly this year as a homeschooler there isn't a group for her to participate in. She competed in Don't Bug Me and Animal Safari. The only problem she had is that they work as a team and the rule was she had at let the older child give her answer if they disagreed and she was frustrated that her answers were right and they lost points, although they finished 14th out of 84 teams I believe.

Thanks, melmichigan! May I ask how much of a time commitment it was? Per week? And for how many weeks? Did you DD participate on a school team that met after school or during school?

The gifted program in DS8's school has these little mini-courses that are offered during the weekly gifted pullout class. She runs about five classes per quarter and the kids (grade 4-6) can sign up for whichever one class they are most interested in. I was wondering if I could get the gifted teacher to create a pullout class for the kids who were interested in participating in Science Olympiad. It sounds like a great idea to me, but I was curious as to how much work it would be before I proposed it to the gifted teacher.

A quick glance at the homeschooling page for Science Olympiad says that your DD may be able to participate on her previous school's team. ?? Just thought I would point that little tidbit out, in case your DD really like it and wanted to continue it.

http://soinc.org/home_schools

Hi ebeth,

My kids have participated in the middle school division (B) of Science Olympiad for several years. Sadly our high school no longer participates (I asked them at the Parents meeting why we can't re-start and they said it's expensive, no money for stipends for coaches and takes a huge amount of time for both coaches and students). They were more amenable to my suggestion to participate in the National Science Bowl because the prep time/costs are nothing and we only have to come up with the bus money to go to regionals.

Science Olympiad is really great, but a ton of work. Our little middle school (60 kids total) devotes most of winter to the competition. Practices are Every Day after school plus several weekend workshops. There are 23 events and for regional competition we have 2 teams (A & B, with A made up of mostly 7th & 8th graders who have done Sci Oly before). We have written grants to pay for a teacher to be the coach, assistant coach is a volunteer from BLM, and many parents help. The years when there were not enough adult helpers were weak. In addition to grant money, our PTA supports it, and I personally have donated a lot of money each year toward my kids specific events. Things they need include robots, reference books, field guides, lots of balsa and bass wood, glue, miscellaneous hardware, lab ware, safety supplies, kits (like rock & mineral samples, forensics analysis kits)...plus organizers like binders, buses for the competitions, hotels, meals, etc.

The experience is completelyworth it if there are a handful of dedicated people.

DOK, Cym!!

That sounds so completely incredible!! But given our laid-back, "let's to the minimum amount of work necessary" school system, I can see problems ahead. Thanks for the detailed account. I might still mention it to the powers that be in a general sort of way, as in "Wouldn't this be really cool if we could do this?". I wouldn't mind donating time and money to the project. I basically am looking for something in science that would spark DS8's interest and give him a reason to practice those undeveloped social skills. Doing well in the competition was not the main goal. Fostering team work was. DS could not participate in Lego League this year due to a cutback in the number of hours for gifted instruction thanks to the wonderful gifted legislation.

Anyway, I might see if there are other parents nearby who are interested. A group of parents yelling together are more likely to be heard than one lone voice.

Thanks again for the info!!