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Area schools compete in science-based competition
Published 2/6/2010 in Local News
By MONICA SPRINGER
Carrie Hall, Annalise Parr and Christy Hall crouched over a sink, trying to get exactly 50 milliliters of water in a graduated cylinder.
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Laurie Sisk/Telegrm Greeley County Middle School students Coriama Yenez, left, and Mariah Brown prepare their entry in the Junkyard Challenge at the Science Olympiad on Friday morning at Garden City Community College. The pair was trying to construct an apparatus that would set off four mousetraps in sequence.
They poured some water out, closed one eye, and looked at the cylinder closely to see if the water was at the 50-milliliter line.
Then the three middle school students placed the cylinder on a scale, dropped several marbles in it and eventually calculated the density of the marbles.
Several high schools and middle schools competed in the 2010 Science Olympiad regional tournament Thursday and Friday at Garden City Community College. High schools in Dodge City, Pratt, Sublette and Wichita County took part in the competition on Thursday. On Friday, middle school teams from Greeley County, Scott City, Sublette and the High Plains Home Educators Association competed.
Carrie, 12, Christy, 14, and Annalise, 11, competed as part of the High Plains Home Educators Association. The group took about an hour drawing graphs and analyzing their data for Experimental Design. After they were done with the experiment, the group crowded around a worksheet with a pen and calculator in hand.
"Experimenting is fun because you never know what you'll end up with," Parr said.
The group took first place in Experimental Design. High Plains Home Educators also took first in the middle school portion of Science Olympiad with 70 points. Scott City Middle School took second place with 65 points and Greeley County placed third with 49 points.
In the high school portion, Dodge City High School placed first with 55.5 points, Wichita County High School took second with 55 points, and Pratt High School received third place with 52 points.
It makes sense for students who like science to compete with each other, said Kevin Nyberg, a teacher at Garden City High School who oversaw the Solar System event at the Science Olympiad.
"If you are a productive scientist, you are in a competition all the time," Nyberg said.
The Solar System portion of the Science Olympiad involved a test that students study for before the competition. It was one of several events where students studied materials, then were quizzed on that material.
Kay Davis, a science instructor and the science/math division director at GCCC, said the event is a nice way to let students who do not participate in sports be competitive with each other.
"Kids enjoy the events. They get the gamut of hands-on and memory tests," Davis said.
In Experimental Design, John Fitzgerald, a chemistry instructor at GCCC, outlined the experiment for students then helped guide them in the hour-long experiment.
The purpose of Science Olympiad is to provide an outlet for students in science that they don't have in school, Fitzgerald said.
He said many every-day objects are created by scientists conducting experiments, including automobiles and flat-screen televisions.
The contest at GCCC is one of five across the state. The regional events serve as qualifying events for the Kansas Science Olympiad State Tournament hosted each year at Wichita State University. This year, the state tournament is scheduled for April 3.
"Kids are competitive. They want to get first, and they want to do better than everyone else," Davis said.
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