Division A is the Science Olympiad program for Elementary aged students. Each school participating in Elementary Science Olympiad Competitive Tournaments or Fun Day/Fun Night events must make a one-time purchase of an Elementary Science Olympiad Manual. There is no national tournament or national membership fee for Division A elementary schools. Once an Elementary Science Olympiad manual is purchased, educators may initiate local, school district or regional competitions.

The 4th Annual Putnam City Schools Division A Science Olympiad Tournament was held April 9th in Oklahoma City at Putnam City High School.  The tournament is the culminating activity of a year-long investigation of STEM subjects on the part of 4th and 5th grade students in the districts Gifted and Talented program.  Earlier in the academic year, the district’s 18 Division A coaches met with the district’s Fine Arts and Gifted Education Coordinator Jason Memoli, Technology Integration Specialist Jeni James, and district STEM Facilitator Bob Melton to select events and guidelines from the catalog of events found in Science Olympiad’s Elementary Manual.  Other events, modified from Division B guidelines were added to make this year’s offering of 17 competitive events.

The real key to the success of the tournament is the involvement of the district’s three Division C (High School) teams and their Coaches.

Event Supervisors from all three Putnam City Division C Science Olympiad Teams

The Event Supervisors for each event are members of the Science Olympiad teams from Putnam City High School, Putnam City North High School, and Putnam City West High School.  An adult volunteer is assigned to each venue to assist, but the high school students plan, operate, and score each event.  Other high school students, most notably National Honor Society members, assist with any of the logistical aspects of the tournament, and there are many. This year’s tournament involved 375 competitors.  The tournament itself attracts over 1200 spectators who spend the day watching the many  events held in the gym (MagLev Cars, Straw Airplanes, Aerodynamics, and Bridge Testing), the Bottle Rocket launching outdoors, and the Egg Drop in the school’s two-story atrium.

Interested is starting a Division A program?  You really should.  It’s a relatively inexpensive way to get elementary-aged students involved with STEM.  It can be a part of the instructional day, part of a Gifted and Talented program, a focus in an after school program, there are all kinds of options for bringing the program to fruition in your school. Tournaments can be held within the school, within the district (Putnam City’s model), or within a region.

This is great way to build excitement and awareness for your Division B and Division C teams!  Not only do elementary students get to experience the excitement and challenge of Science Olympiad, but their parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, (these youngsters do tend to bring a lot of interested adults with them) get exposed to Science Olympiad as well. Elementary students are in awe of the high school students and look to them as role models.  The leadership exhibited by the high school Science Olympiad team members is tremendous and makes this whole arrangements win-win and very worthwhile.

Starting a Division A team is easy, just go to the Science Olympiads store at soinc.org and purchase the Division A Competition manual.  One purchase, a lifetime of excited learning.

The Casady Division B and Division C teams.

Casady Schools successfully defended their 2015 championship by taking first place in both divisions of the team competitions of the 2016 Oklahoma Science Olympiad State Tournament held on the campus of the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond this past Saturday. 30 teams competed in 46 events during a full day of spirited competition on a beautiful spring day.

Division B Trophies were awarded to: 1st – Casady B15, 2nd – Norman Whittier B12, 3rd Bartlesville Central B1

Division C Trophies were awarded to: 1st – Casady C6, 2nd – Jenks C1, 3rd Norman North C2.

The events were capped with the film debut of the first episode of the new Star Trek-based educational web series chronicling the adventures of Starship Grissom and currently in production on Oklahoma. Series Director Richard Wells and the cast and crew of the Grissom showed a rough cut from the episode and then conducted a question and answer period with the Science Olympiad audience just before the awards ceremony. A number of Oklahoma STEM educators serve as writers for the series. http://grissom.starbasestudios.net

Congratulations to all the teams and competitors who participated in the state tournament. This is the culmination of a tournament season that began in November and toured the state taking teams to Broken Arrow, Norman, Oklahoma City, Durant, and Edmond. Thank you to all of the sites that hosted a tournament this year.  These are very complex and difficult events to organize and produce. All of them were well done and successful. The state tournament was directed by Dr. Beth Allan who brings the resources of UCO together to produce our state tournament just a week after she directs the largest regional science fair in the state.

Thank you to all of the students who participated in the tournaments this school year. Your hard work, dedication and persistence will pay you big dividends in your future. Thanks as well to all of the Coaches who work tirelessly to bring Science Olympiad to your schools and students. And a big thank you to all of the Event Supervisors who volunteer to bring and share their STEM expertise with all of us. There were a number of Science Olympiad Alumni who served as Event Supervisors at all of our tournaments this year. At Saturday’s state tournament there were 4 Alumni who had competed on teams that went to the national tournament when they were in middle and high school!

Best wishes to Casady Middle School and Casady High School and good luck representing Oklahoma at the national tournament in May. While Casady will no doubt continue it’s normal pattern of after school and Saturday practices in preparation for Nationals, the rest of the Oklahoma Science Olympiad community can begin now in preparation for next year’s invitational tournament season. The Science Olympiad event history chart is found at https://www.soinc.org/sites/default/files/uploaded_files/ehistory_0.pdf.  Even though the specific rules for these events won’t be released until next September, we do know that some events will be dropped and replaced with other topics and challenges. Coaches received information in the team packet about the National Science Olympiad Summer Institute in Phoenix in July.  More information is found at https://www.soinc.org/summer_institute. Several Oklahoma Science Olympiad Coaches have attended over the years and it DOES make a difference! Now is the time to start preparing for 2017!

Once again,the Oklahoma Science Olympiad returns to the University of Central Oklahoma for the 2016 State Tournament.  The tournament concludes the invitational tournament season that began in November at Oneta Ridge Middle School in Broken Arrow and continued to Irving Middle School in Norman, Casady School in Oklahoma City and the Tishomingo Tournament at Southeastern Oklahoma State University.  The Division B and Division C winning teams will qualify to travel to the the University of Wisconsin – Stout for the 32nd National Science Olympiad Tournament in May.

Team check-in for the state tournament begins at 7:30 and the opening ceremony is at 8:30 in the Howell Hall Atrium.  Competition starts at 9:00 with the first of 46 events that will be contested over the next 6 hours.

Closing ceremony kick off at 3:30 in Constitution Hall in the Nigh University Center as STAR TREK beams in with a special debut of the first episode of the new Star Trek educational series and a Q and A panel with some of the series actors and writers.

The venue for the Tishomingo Invitational Tournament has changed.  A big thank you to the faculty and staff of Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant for agreeing to host the Invitational on short notice and the Tournament Director Shelena Thomas for doing the leg work to make it happen.

Thank You!

Registration for the tournament continues at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZN87GSX

Roster submission will open later this week.

How surprising was that?  The forecast “light dusting” of snow that took place at my house was something all together different as I approached Casady School early Saturday morning just 4 miles to the east.  Most of the localized snow dump took place just as teams were arriving, but by the start of the tournament, there was only the 30 MPH wind and bitter wind chill with which to contend.

But everybody took it in stride and Casady hosted a great tournament.  Only one event had to be cancelled!

Tournament Results:

Division B

1st Place – Casady B15

2nd Place – Casady B16

3rd Place – Whittier B12

Division C

1st Place – Casady C6

2nd Place – Norman North C2

3rd Place – Jenks C1

Casady MS Coach Aric Sappington checking logistics with a student before the start of the tournament.

Putnam City High School Coach Benton Shriver and PC West Coach Jan Watson warming up in the cafeteria before the start of competition

Event Supervisor Mark Fuller checking in a rocket with a competitor on the field at the Bottle Rocket event.

Getting the bridge position just right.

Event Supervisors  grading and scoring.

The awards presentations.

The next Invitational tournament will take place February 6th at Murray State College in Tishomingo. This a great opportunity for students to visit a college campus and is the first time we have held a Science Olympiad event in southern Oklahoma.  We anticipate at least one team from Texas to attend as well!  Registration will open next week and the Roster form will be posted a week or so before the tournament (Do Not Forget To Submit You Roster Online no later than Wednesday, February 3rd.  Submitted Rosters can be modified on-site)

14 Division B and 5 Division C teams competed in Saturday’s Tournament at Washington Irving Middle School in Norman.  Special thanks to Matt McCoy and his team of colleagues and volunteers for putting on the event.  Results of the tournament were:

Division B:

1st Place Casady B15

2nd Place Casady B16

3rd Place Whittier B 12

Division C:

1st Place Casady C6

2nd Place (tie) Casady C7, Norman North C2

Individual event results are posted on the OK Science Olympiad Basecamp site.

The next Invitational Tournament (yes, all Oklahoma Science Olympiad member teams are invited) is January 9th at Casady School in Oklahoma City.  Registration (which tells organizers which teams plan to attend)opens December 13th. The roster (which tells organizers which students will be competing) will open this week AND WILL CLOSE JANUARY 6TH!

Arrival

Sign up for event times

Robot Arm

Awards

Putnam City High School and a big friend from Irving.

Last Saturday featured the first Invitational Tournament of the season at Oneta Ridge Middle School in Broken Arrow.  Nineteen teams competed in 19 C and 21 B events.

Division B results:

1. Casady B15
2. Casady B16
3. Oneta Ridge B4

Division C results:

1. Casady C6
2. Norman North C2
3. Union C12

Next stop: December 12th in Norman at Washington Irving Middle School.  Registration is open now!

The Oklahoma Science Olympiad Training Conference is this Saturday, 26th in Howell Hall on the Campus of the University of Central Oklahoma.  A campus map can be downloaded here.  The program can be downloaded here.  Parking is free.  The conference is free.  Lunch is free.  The information is invaluable.

See you there!