Pictured above: Sammie Emerson, Jing Liao, Precious Chima, Dako Lesman, Hansen Wang, Joe Nkunzi, Diona Xu, and Carlie Gildon.

Last Saturday VVS competed in our very first Science Olympiad!  Science Olympiad is a national science competition and event, held this year in Illinois in May, for which each state sends one or two teams.  The Arizona State finals took place at Glendale Community College on Saturday, a fantastic facility just down the hill. There were 26 events in all, ranging from purely knowledge-based multiple-choice style events through experimental design and forensics to build-ahead events such as the Egg-o-naut!  

Each team in an Olympiad consists of up to 15 students, and each school can compete in as many or as few events as the team able to do. 

"This year was an exploratory mission for our students, and we had exactly zero preparation time, other than knowledge gleaned in classes or read from a book on the way down to Phoenix," says Biology teacher Andy Gill. He took eight students who competed in eight events in pairs.  Out of 35 teams VVS came 31st this year, but won one event ribbon!

VVS came in 26th place out of 35 in Anatomy and Physiology, 16th in Astronomy, 17th in Cell Biology, 17th in Disease Detectives, 23rd in Environmental Chemistry, 21st in Forensics, 30th in Picture This and 4th in Ecology (Hansen and Jing!)

Participants were: Jing, Hansen, Carlie, Sammie, Dako, Joe, Precious and Diona – good work scientists!!

"Next year there will be a ‘Science Club’ at VVS that will meet once per week sometime in the evening and will be open to all to attend on a whenever-you-can-make-it basis," says Andy who adds that the intention of the Science Club is to extend the learning of science and math out of the classroom, take on fun building projects, prepare for subject-based SAT II tests and also prepare for the Science Olympiad and Science Bowl next year.  "Our goal has to be to have a full team that competes in every event and scores in the top half of the field.  I’m stoked!" exclaims Andy.