The Science Olympiad team, for the first time in a long time, made it to state. This is a huge step in the journey to allowing the team to grow and succeed for the years to come.
Science Olympiad is a team competition in which students compete in events across various fields of science, including geology, biology, chemistry, physics and engineering. In these events, students test their knowledge on these subjects, do labs on them and create builds to compete.
It is a newer club at Warren Central, having been established only three years ago, although it has previously existed in the school. In the first two years, the expectations as to how far they would go competitively were not as high due to the low number of participants and how new it was. This year was different. Science Olympiad now has many participants and has exceeded expectations. Their hard work has paid off, and they have gone all the way to the state level.
“Although our team was still developing, I had high hopes this year because I knew we had team members who would devote their time to their events and to the team,” senior and team captain Sophia Paschke said. “I didn't know how many people would join, but I was pleasantly surprised when enough joined to make a full team for the first time.”
Paschke is very happy to have made it to the state level with this team, but it’s not just her. Their coaches are just as pleased.
“It's been very rewarding to sponsor the Science Olympiad this year, especially to see the team show so much growth in events we have historically struggled with, like chemistry labs and forensic science,” coach and science teacher Samantha Escudero said.
At the state level, their highest placement was ninth in hovercraft, and they placed 22nd out of 39 teams.
It has been a big achievement for this team as they are resurging as a group and growing. Going from not placing at regionals to state is a huge leap. Many things are to come for Warren’s Science Olympiad team if they keep this rate of growth.