This past Saturday, February 9th, while other CdM students were getting their hair done or putting on their dress clothing for the Winter Formal dance, the Science Olympiad team was representing our high school at the annual Science Olympiad Regional Competition. The group of students woke up bright and early in the morning to meet at CdM and gather the materials needed to compete. After that they drove together to the location of the event, which, this year, was the campus of University of California, Irvine (UCI).

Unfortunately for the students, the weather was not pleasant. At the very beginning of the day, it was raining pretty heavily. This made the task of setting up the team tent area nearly impossible. As luck would have it, there was a nice covered area that was not yet claimed, so CdM was able to set up their campsite there. The wind made the weather even more freezing which created a gloomy, miserable environment. Luckily, the temperature mellowed out as the day went on, and by noon, it was nice and sunny.

Total, there were six time period blocks for events to take place. The high school team and the middle school team each competed in 23 separate events. Events were either written tests, like Anatomy/Physiology, hands on activities, like Density Lab, or building competitions, like Boomilever.

When asked about what he likes most about Science Olympiad, Lucas Phillips, a freshman in his first year of the club, said, “I really like that we are able to choose what events we participate in. I get to learn more about topics I’m actually interested in rather than forced to learn. The competition days are also really fun because we get to travel to other schools and hang out with my other friends in the club.”

CdM’s high school students ended up placing 10th in Write it Do it and 12th in Experimental Design. The middle school students placed highest with 4th in Meteorology, 7th in Codebusters, 8th in Thermodynamics, and 9th in Road Scholar. Even though CdM was not one of the schools that qualified for the Science Olympiad National Competition, they still showed some major improvement from last year’s team. Good luck next year Sea Kings!