I’m doing Science Olympiad this year for the first time and I had a few questions.
First of all, I read that the maximum number of of people on a team is 15, but more than 15 people signed up at our school. Also, more than 2 people signed up for events that allow only groups of up to 2. What are we supposed to do about these problems? The answer might be to have an alternate team that competes at regional event, but I found info on only one regional event in my state that does not include my town.
Also, I was hoping to get more of a sense of what the events are like, specifically anatomy and physiology, cell biology, and forensics, which I am interested in. How do I prepare for these other than studying for the first two out of a textbook?
Thanks!
Which state are you in? The rules vary from state to state, so beware. My Division B team that I coach in TN (love them all to death) has between 14-17 people on the team, depending on who’s at the meeting, and as of right now the staff sponsor (she’s seriously a saint) and I have as many kids working on as many events as they like, and when we get dates and schedules, we’ll assign them to events. Are you an officer? If you’re not an officer, then I wouldn’t worry too much about it.
If you tell me which state you’re in, I can help you do research.
There can only be 15 members in a team. You are correct in thinking that the extra members could be put into an alternate team. For example, A team would compete at events and B team would be the alternates. How many seniors do you have on your team? A good thing about having an alternate team is that for next year, the alternates would be able to replace the seniors’ spots.
Yes, what state are you in? Some of the competitive states, like California and New York always have stiff competition. Cell biology and anatomy and physiology are particularly hard to place in at regionals, because most people doing the events have done them for a really long time. Have you looked at the scioly wiki yet? That is a good place to start for new members.
By the way, what grade are you in?
You should probably ask your club advisers, especially if your school has competed in Science Olympiad before, as they should have the best idea of what they’ll do. I’m guessing your teams haven’t been finalized yet, so your team will eventually assign everyone to events based on what events they were interested in. If you have enough people, you’ll probably have an alternate team. If not then your team will have to fins someway of cutting the number of members down to 15 to compete.
As for studying for events, the official website usually has some links to help you (soinc.org). Do you have the official rule book? It has everything you would need to know for the competition, including how each event works and what you need to know for each. Also check out scioly.org . Their wiki is a great place to start studying, though after that it would probably be best to explore other sites so that you know everything stated in the rule book. Scioly also has practice tests and a forum where you can ask questions and get probably get better answers than here.
I don’t know about anatomy and cell biology, but I do have experience with Forensics. Basically in a lab, they give you made up crime with multiple suspects with information about all of them. At the lab they’ll also give you a few different powders, hairs, fibers, and plastics which you have to identify. You’re also expected to know how to do chromatography. They also give you two other things that could change, though they almost always test your knowledge on fingerprints, and usually blood spatters or just some matching stuff. Based on the stuff you identify, you write a paragraph explaining who you think the prime suspect is based on the info they provide you.
If you have any other questions, I’m happy to try to help out 