Science Olympiad teams show strongly at competitions

by Carley Bruner

New to the competitive arena this year at PHS is our Science Olympiad team. Mr. Cushman and Mrs. Clement have done a wonderful job with the group of young kids interested in science-related things and competing in them amongst other schools. The kids have put many hours of hard work into this. The Science Olympiad teams have only competed 3 times; the first being at Hillsdale College, the second being at Adrian College, and the third being at Western Michigan University.

Both the high school and junior high teams have done really well. The high school placed 3rd at Hillsdale College, 5th at Adrian College, and 8th in regionals held at Western Michigan and the junior high placed last at Hillsdale College, 4th at Adrian College, and 9th at regionals

Students were very glad that they did well in the competition on the 14th. “I think I did pretty well”, proudly stated senior Franny Marino. “I did well; I thought I did horrible, but I got 1st place”, stated 8th grader Beth Kuenzer. On the other hand some of them thought that they did not do so hot. “Not great, but I tried my hardest”, said 8th grader Darrien Bump.

There was a variety of favorites at the competition on February 14th. Everyone enjoyed a little bit of everything but there were definitely some things that topped it off for many participants. “The egg-o-naut launch”, said sophomore Jackie Page. “Competing and the food”, said junior Desirae Swope. “Hanging out with my friends”, said 8th grader Jacob Page. “The award ceremony, I liked to see how the other schools did” stated Kuenzer.

There were a few first places. At the Hillsdale Invitational Katie Saunders and Bethany Kuenzer took the only first place for the middle school in Science Crime Busters, and in the high school, first place’s were taken by Chloe Hepker and Derra Clark in Astronomy, Chase Stratton and Katie Fether in Environmental Chemistry and Desirae Swope and Autumn Buckner in Disease Detectives. At the Tri-County Invitational the only first place taken by the middle school was Saunders and Kuenzer in Anatomy and the high school’s first place’s were taken by Marino and Jessica Beard in Health Science and Derra, Chloe, and Jackie in Picture This. There were no first places taken by the middle school at regionals, but the high school had Stratton and Fether take first in Environmental Chemistry.

There are a lot of different things that the students need to work on if they expect to do well at regionals. Many of them have weak areas that they want to work on so they hope to do better. “Probably knowing diseases for Disease Detectives”, stated Autumn. “Remote Sensing definitely, we could have had five pages front and back of notes, and I was not aware of that,” stated senior Casie Bail.

Mr. Cushman knows that the middle school team can get better for next time, but thinks it was a positive experience for the kids. “I think the middle school did well for their first time but they need to be better prepared. I liked getting the chance to see everyone have a good time. The middle school did place last, but we had eight events that no one participated in, so we automatically got last in all them,” said Mr. Cushman.

The Science Olympiad teams finished out great this year for being a rookie team. The high school finished with an 8th place and the middle school finished with a 9th place at regionals. The high school gladly placed over Litchfield, which was a thing that they wanted to do the most. The middle school placed over Athens, Thornapple Kellogg, and Moline Christian.