ESJ student team competes in regional Science Olympiad

Kaitlyn Nave and Joel Larson from the Endicott/St. John Science Olympiad team placed third in the Density Lab, earning a medal. They were the highest placed finishers from the school at the regional Olympiad March 9 at Spokane Falls Community College.

The team was missing a few of its members and had less than half the number allowed, too few to be able to make it to each of the 23 competitions. The team ranked in last place of the 20 teams, but they didn't place last in a single competition they entered.

The competitions were in five categories: Life, Personal and Social Science, Earth and Space Science, Physical Science and Chemistry, Technology and Engineering, and Inquiry and Nature of Science.

Most of the competitions at the event were hands-on tests, such as Density Lab and Circuit Lab or on-paper tests like Disease Detectives and Heredity, but some were based on design and calibration, with pre-builds required before they arrived, such as with Battery Buggy, Roller Coaster and Boomilever.

The Olympiad is one of the premier science competitions in the nation and was founded in 1984. Science Olympiad is a nonprofit organization that aims to recognize outstanding achievement, improve the quality of science education and create a passion for learning science in students.

The Washington Science Olympiad Board of Directors works to increase the quality of science education for elementary, middle school and high school students. The tournaments and events are designed to enhance the process skills and science content.

For each event, teams of two worked together to complete whatever the task was. In the case of pre-builds, the teams had worked on the projects at school. The competition encourages teamwork, collaboration and cross-training.

Team coaches were Endicott Middle School Science Teacher Mike Maloney and Endicott School Counselor Corie Tollett.