The college played host to the Science Olympiad, which was held on Monday, March 4. There were 68 middle and high schools and approximately 1500 students on campus competing in 48 different science events ranging from engineering to astronomy, forestry and chemistry.
The Science Olympiad is an international nonprofit organization faithful to improving the quality of science education. They want to increase students interest in science and also want them to enjoy it.
There are eight goals that they want students to achieve through research, training workshops, encouragement of intramural, district, and regional, state and national tournaments.
All of these challenging and motivational events are well balanced among biology, earth science, chemistry, engineering, physics and computers. Each of the events balances students’ knowledge of science facts, concepts, process skills and science applications.
Since 1985 the Pennsylvania Science Olympiad has been going on. Dick and Mimi Smith were the ones who originally started all of it. When it first started there were only 30 teams who were competing in one location and now it has grown more then 300 teams competing in six regional locations across the state. In 1985 42 Pennsylvania Division teams have ranked in the top 15 nationally since beginning national competition. Also 25 PA B Division teams have ranked in the top 15 nationally.
The winners of this year’s Science Olympiad were Lauren Johnson and Brian Gao, who won National Gold Medal Winners in Remote Sensing. The National Gold Medal Winners in Gravity Vehicle were Jan Scharsing and Elki Spino.
