Author: Megan Holland, AOMS Science Olympiad Advisor
On February 27, students from Aviara Oaks Middle School’s Science Olympiad teams logged on and prepared to compete in the Science Olympiad Regional Competition.
The AOMS theme for this year’s Science Olympiad season, ‘Stranger Things,’ was fitting, given the virtual practices and now virtual competition. It was a strange year and things felt a bit upside down.
Throughout the changes, however, our students stayed dedicated to the program and did their best. They coordinated with their partners beforehand to test their knowledge and stayed dedicated to virtual practices leading up to the competition.
Many of our team members scored in the top 30. Overall, we achieved 10th place and qualified for the state competition!
Our state competition will be April 3, just as students are starting Spring Break.
One of our five teams of students will compete and we will face off with schools all over California. The students competing include: Arianna Sharifi, Jacob Dougherty, Hope Ryan-Retzlaff, Marianthe Dresios, Varni Reddy Badveli, Zaiden Dee, Danielle Dee, Garv Sharma, Sathvik Kambam, Henry Saint, Madison Le, Yash Patil, Meera Mor, and Matvey Pugachev.
Many of these students have been dedicated to the program for the past three years, and stayed involved when the competition got canceled because of the pandemic at the end of the 2019-20 season.
Every year, more than 70 students at AOMS (grades 6-8) participate in the Science Olympiad program. Five teams are eligible to compete. Students choose among 23 events that reflect the ever-changing nature of genetics, earth science, chemistry, anatomy, physics, geology, mechanical engineering and technology.
After five months of studying their event (with the help of our volunteer coaches – many of which work at ViaSat), students compete with schools all over San Diego. February’s competition was among the ‘stranger things’ this year. All practices and the competition were virtual.
Thank you to all our coaches that help put this on, the Carlsbad Educational Foundation, ViaSat, and the Carlsbad Unified School District for providing these opportunities for our students.
If your child would like to participate in the future, look out for information for the next year’s season. We would love for you to join!
Learn more: www.CarlsbadEd.org/Science-Olympiad/