About Minnesota Science Olympiad
The Farmington High School Science Olympiad Activity involves a team of students competing in hands-on and knowledge-based science competitions against other school districts in Minnesota. In the previous year, we had a team essentially full of seniors who graduated, and so this past school year was all about recruitment and attempting to put together a full team of 15 from scratch. We were actually able to get 14 dedicated members, mostly 9th and 10th graders. Given the fact that for the overwhelming majority of our team it was their first year and the fact that we got moved into a more difficult region, we had a lot of success. We had multiple top-4 finishes in events such as Bridge, Experimental Design, Forestry, Trajectory, and Write It / Do It. Science Olympiad requires that you finish in the top-half of your region to qualify for state, which we were able to accomplish as we sent our team to the state competition at Bethel University. This year, we are looking forward to taking a now experienced team (all members returning) to new heights.
Minnesota Science Olympiad is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that has a mission to promote STEM education for students in Minnesota K-12 schools by engaging communities in the thrill, excitement and challenge of science, technology, engineering and math competition. Team competition is patterned after track tournaments with challenging and motivational events ranging from earth science through physics. Events range from hands-on labs to student built machines, from outdoor events to paper and pencil tests. There is also a balance between events requiring scientific knowledge and understanding, and others requiring process and application skills. Although some events require an individual from one team to compete against other individuals from other schools, most events require teamwork, group planning, and cooperation. The emphasis is on learning, participation, interaction, having fun and team spirit.
There are three divisions, an elementary school (Division A), a junior high/middle school (Division B) and a senior high/high school (Division C). Last year over 14,000 elementary and secondary teams from the United States and Canada competed in the Science Olympiad program. The Official National Science Olympiad Web Page can be viewed at http://www.soinc.org.
http://www.minnesotaso.org
