Science Olympiad for high school?

[brendafromtenn]

Last "little chickie" has an opportunity to participate in a high school Science Olympiad team.  Has anyone ever done this on a high school level?  How much time will this take?  She has an interest in going into a STEM field.  

Any information you can give us would be helpful.

Blessings,

Brenda

[Jen500]

My boys participated in Science Olympiad for 2 years on their high school team. I think the prep time involved depends on how the team is run, the event(s) you are doing, and  prior knowledge of the events. Mine spent winter break building things (so about 2 weeks--maybe 2 hours/day) and then another week or so rebuilding before the state completion, and I don't think they spent any time prepping for the other events they did. Their school team spent a fair amount of time testing students to place them in events they would be strong in, and for some events making a good 'team'. I know at certain other schools here the teams spend A LOT of time studying and prepping for events.

 

[Sebastian (a lady)]

My youngest son just finished his 4th year on a Science Olympiad team.  He did two years on a B level (middle school) team and 2 years on a C level (high school) team.

It has been an amazing experience for him.  It not only gave him a solid cadre of interesting peers, but gave him some design challenges to work with.  His specialty has been various builds: balsa wood towers, wood "boomilevers", mousetrap car, and thermodynamics device.  He also did Experimental Design (one of my favorite events) and several study events.

I think that his design and reasoning process has come a long ways.  He has always been creative, but he has learned persistence and gained confidence in talking to other people about his designs.

I think the back of the envelope suggestion is 30-60 minutes of study a day per event.  This varies greatly.  For my kid, his work on a build often took many, many hours (there might be 100 hours of design, build and testing in his mousetrap car).  He didn't spend as much time on his study events (which showed in  his results).

 

 

[Amommymoose]

I have been a middle school coach for 4 years and am a new high school coach (but have been prepping for that for the last 18mo).  I also attend a coaches clinic in AZ with coaches at both levels from all over the country.

This will TOTALLY depend on how the team is run; and to some extent--how the program is run in your state (which differs rather wildly across the country).  The more time they put into their events, the better they'll do.  The high school kids are working at a college level of material if that helps.  There are some events that will come easier than others; and the build events often take more time and some money (for materials unless your team provides everything).  For the builds, some of them destroy the build at a competition and therefore require a new build for each competition.  Find out how many competitions the team has per year and what they supply.  My team has lab boxes for the chemistry/lab events but no build materials.

It can be a great experience!!

[brendafromtenn]

Thank you everyone for the helpful information.  Sorry it has taken me so long to get back.  I was under the weather for a few days.  

This looks like it might be doable for our last "little chickie" at home.  

Thanks!

Brenda

[merylvdm]

Yes you should definitely give it a try! All my kids did it and loved it and I enjoy it so much (even though I am a German / English major) that I have continued coaching even now that my kids are graduated.  Students can learn so much science in a "practical" way and medals they might win look good to colleges! Our team (along with a few other homeschool teams) are off to Nationals next week after winning our State championships.