Founded in 1984, Science Olympiad is a national team STEM competition where individuals and teams use engineering skills and science content as a basis for participating in testing events, lab events, and building events.
Although the Science Olympiad has been around for almost 40 years, Brownell Talbot only entered the playing field during the 2020‑2021 school year, under the leadership of BT chemistry teacher Kari Newman. Newman is well versed in the Science Olympiad world; she competed in high school and ran events at other schools.
“Science Olympiad is a fun way to show you know science,” said Newman. “Science is about communicating, engineering, and experimenting, and Science Olympiad is a fun competition that involves all three of those skills.”
BT currently has two teams, Middle School (coached by Middle School science teacher Abby Diehl) and Upper School (coached by Newman), with 15 students on each team. Students meet during their flex time and after school to prepare for their events. While students can win events as smaller teams or individuals, the team score adds up to a trophy in the end.
Throughout the school year, teams prepare and enter into various competitions, culminating in the Nebraska State Competition.
BT’s Middle and Upper School Science Olympiad teams competed at the 35th Nebraska Science Olympiad this year. There were 25 middle school teams and 30 high school teams competing, and both of BT’s teams finished in the top 5, with Middle School placing 4th and Upper School placing 5th.
Students are already preparing for next year, finding ways to improve their current designs, dreaming up new ideas, and even planning to host BT’s first invitational next year. In a short amount of time, Science Olympiad has become a favorite activity among Middle and Upper School students. Fans of science programming at BT will want to stay tuned -BT hopes to win a bid to Nationals in the not-too-distant future.
“The students are a lot more confident and every year they have more and better ideas,” said Newman. “It’s fun to witness their growth, not only year over year, but even just from the beginning to the end of the season.”
