"The Science Olympiad is an international nonprofit 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. 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. The competitions follow the format of popular board games, TV shows, and athletic games. These challenging and motivational events are well balanced between the various science disciplines of biology, earth science, chemistry, physics, computers and technology. There is also a balance between events requiring knowledge of science facts, concepts, processes, skills, and science applications. In addition, during the day there are open house activities that consist of science and mathematics demonstrations, activities and career counseling sessions conducted by professors, and scientists at the host institution occurring concurrently with the events."

In 1984, the first set of captains, coaches, and students who created the concept of Science Olympiad, presented the concept to United States Army Recruiting Command (USARAC) executives. Due to the level of excitement generated by the meeting, the first national tournament was held in May 1985. Seventeen states participated in that tournament. There are now over 14,000 K-12 schools participating from all 50 states and Ontario.

For the past eight years, Pitsco has provided support to Science Olympiad through the form of sponsorships and attendance at the national tournament by Pitsco representatives. Four competitions in which Pitsco has been intimately involved are bottle rocket launching, bridge building, tower building, and boomilever building. Pitsco has supplied the bottle rocket launchers and structure testers for the national competition.

For more information on Science Olympiad, please visit www.soinc.org.

Courtesy of soinc.org