Santa Fe Middle School Students Participate in 30th Annual Science Olympiad at Occidental College – Mission Possible

Kate and Ben use a cordless drill as they work on a part of the launcher for the Scrambler. – Photo by Terry Miller

By Terry Miller

Mission Possible was the name of one team’s science project at Santa Fe Middle School (SFMS) when we visited last week. The students were getting ready to compete at the Science Olympiad at Occidental College.

The name says it all … anything is possible if you put your mind to it and that is exactly what the teachers at Santa Fe Middle School encourage their students to do … think way outside of the box.

The Science Olympiad is an international, non-profit organization devoted to improving the quality of science education, increasing student interest in science, and providing recognition for outstanding achievement in science education by both students and teachers. These goals are accomplished through classroom activities, research, training workshops, and the encouragement of intramural, district, regional, state, and national tournaments. The Science Olympiad tournaments are rigorous, academic, interscholastic competitions that consist of a series of individual and team events which students prepare for during the year.

Jim Yanko volunteers his time to help students get ready for Saturday’s Olympiad. – Photo by Terry Miller

Teacher Roxana Yanko (along with her able and very willing assistant and husband, Jim Yanko) helped prepare the students for the day-long event at Occidental College last Saturday, Feb. 27. Teacher (robotics)Yvonne Koskela also lent a valuable assist for this year’s competition.

Yanko says the students learn much more than the engineering side of how things work, they also learn a great deal about time management.

The pace at the competition is fast, spirited and the time is limited for the students to demonstrate their particular project. For example, one team is limited to eight minutes to prove that a raw egg would not crack during the experiment.

Each year there are approximately 23 challenging and motivational events that are drawn from the various disciplines of biology, earth science, chemistry, physics, computers, and technology. There is a balance between events requiring knowledge of science facts, concepts processes, skills, and science applications.

Sante Fe students created all kinds of devices in hopes of garnering some interest at the Olympiad.

From the preliminary scores published so far, it looks like SFMS ranked 17th overall (out of 40 schools participating) and scored in the top-12 for each of the following four events.
– 12th place in Invasive Species.
– 10th place in Wind Power.

– Seventh place in Mission Possible.

– Seventh place in Road Scholar.
This past Saturday was the L.A. Regional competition and the top six teams from this competition advanced to the state competition. Winners at the state competition advance to nationals.
SFMS participated as a Division B team (middle schools) in events that included test, lab, and build engineering components.

Hailey works on the bridge for the Bridge Building event. – Photo by Terry Miller

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