Blue Valley’s Pleasant Ridge Middle School Science Olympiad team just won its fifth consecutive Kansas State Science Olympiad championship tournament.
The victory gives the team the opportunity to represent the state and compete against 59 other middle school teams at the National Science Olympiad Tournament, which takes place May 19 at Wichita State University.
Science Olympiad is a STEM competition
- Students compete as teams in 23 events that span life, physical, Earth and spaces sciences, as well as engineering and building complex devices, according to Science Olympiad.
- A single school may have up to 15 students who divide into teams of two to three to compete in the 23 events during the course of an all-day tournament.
- Eighteen of the events have students take written examinations and the other five events involve students demonstrating devices they have built. Here’s a look at the event logistics manual.
The team began preparing last June
- In addition to attending weekly practices and study sessions, many students have spent 15 or more hours outside of school studying for the competition, said David Spieker, who co-coaches Pleasant Ridge’s Science Olympiad team with Prasanthi Dandamudi.
- Now, Dandamudi said the team has turned its efforts toward preparing for the upcoming national competition.
- “We want to ensure that momentum stays, so we add additional study sessions during the week and some students will meet separately to prepare for their individual events,” Dandamudi said.
Coaches attribute the team’s success to a strong work ethic
- “The students have a really good work ethic, and they have a strong support system at home that is necessary because it’s hard,” Spieker said. “The school administration has also been very supportive.”
- Pleasant Ridge Science Olympiad Club was first established in 2016, with the inaugural team qualifying for the Kansas State tournament in their first year.
- Since then, the team has won every state tournament and represented Kansas in the national tournaments each year, as well.
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