Manufacturers and other businesses in need of skilled talent from local students will be happy to learn that there are some bright minds emerging from middle and high schools across the region with innovation, ingenuity, and inquisitiveness that can lead to major technical advancements for all of us. That talent was clearly on display yesterday, Tuesday, March 3rd at Lake Michigan College during the 33rd Annual Science Olympiad sponsored by Berrien RESA.
After weeks of preparation on the homefront and a solid daylong head-to-head competition with other schools from throughout the region of Michigan’s Great Southwest, five local schools have emerged from the event on the Napier Campus of Lake Michigan College and head next to statewide competition in April at Michigan State University.
Three Berrien County Middle School teams and two High School teams cast aside fellow students from a total of 18 schools in the annual display of raw talent and ingenuity hosted by the Berrien RESA Math & Science Center in Berrien Springs.
Yesterday, St. Joseph High School students took first place in the high school division, while second place went to Berrien Springs High School. In first place in the middle school division was Upton Middle School, with second place won by Lakeshore Middle School followed by Berrien Springs Middle School in third.
A total of 18 teams participated, including 11 middle schools and 7 high schools. Each team represents a minimum of 15 kids, and some teams also had a couple of alternates, so between 200 and 300 middle school and high school students displayed their talents in the event.
Tonya Snyder is Coordinator of Student Activities and the Math & Science Center. This was her 20th event at the helm, and she refers to it as, “A celebration of science in all its forms.” She notes, “Some of it includes paper and pencil testing, and some of it has students spending time ahead of the event, building contraptions, Rube Goldberg machines, cars, planes and more, and then they show up for the Science Olympiad to test them against one another and for judges. There is a certain set of rules they have to stay within and it ends up being a great demonstration to the event supervisor of what they did, and how they were getting ready for the event.”
The busy day started at 9:15am, but some schools arrived as early as 8am because of the overwhelming excitement of being on a college campus, and “owning” the building for the day. The top two teams from the high school ranks and the top three from the middle school competition have emerged to head to Michigan State University at the end of April for statewide competition.
There they will participate with 52 other teams from around the state of Michigan, and if they succeed, they will advance to national competition. Teams from the area typically perform well, garnering medals in state competition, but Snyders says, “We have never seen a team go all the way to the nationals, but they do really well in some individual events in East Lansing.”
The 33rd Annual Competition was hosted on multiple fronts on the Napier Campus of Lake Michigan College with medal ceremonies and trophy presentations wrapping the day before students returned to their home districts to get ready for even tougher competition in East Lansing next month.
The amazing talents of these STEM oriented students leaves parents, teachers and coaches with a good feeling for the future of American ingenuity and innovation.
