STEM School in Arizona - Team Structure

In a series of posts, I am going to highlight different team structures for Science Olympiad teams.

This middle school team is from a STEM school in Arizona.  This new coach describes her team structure:

We are a STEM school and have added Science Olympiad as one of our I Choose programs.  We meet almost daily to research and/or build for the upcoming events.  This year, we made Science Olympiad a club class, where students need to apply to become a part of the class.  This way, they seem much more motivated and excited to be a part of our program.  It also qualifies them for some California trips at the end of the school-year.

The principal of the school had children (who are now grown) participate in Science Olympiad years ago.  She started the program three years ago, and I joined the team two years ago.    The school is located in a rural part of northern Arizona in the Prescott Valley.  The school has about 460 students. There are 22 students in the Science Olympiad club class, and about 15% of those students are in honors classes.  Another science teacher helps with some events and travels with us to competitions. This year parents volunteered to help with concessions.  The team plans to attend 2 invitationals, regionals, and states.  Most competitions are 2-3 hours away, and the state competition is 4 hours away.

My goal for this year is to have a more involved group of students that are well exposed to the information they will need for the competitions.  Since I teach science technology programs that are module based, we have access to many computers and materials.  Even though we have a class, the students will still need to put in time after school for the building events.  So far my students have risen to the challenge and I will do my best to keep them on track!

Science Olympiad Team Structures

In a series of posts, I am going to highlight different team structures for Science Olympiad teams.

My team is a middle school team at a small Catholic elementary school which is located in a affluent suburban city in Northeast Ohio.  This team is managed and coached by parents.  When the team started, we would meet on Saturday mornings at the school.  We would try to rotate through all 23 events over a two week period.  Most of the building events would meet in someone's basement or workshop at a different time.  I coached about 7 events and a few other parents would coach 2 or 3 events.  The rest of the events were covered by other parents that each coached 1 event.

This year, our whole team will meet on Fridays after school once a month for team bonding and cover general competition strategies.  The individual events will meet at different times based on the coach's availability and student extra-curricular schedules.  We do not have any restrictions on student participation in additional extracurriculars and we try to work around the winter basketball season.  Every student that wants to be on the team is welcome.  We usually have between 15-20 students on the team and the younger students take turns as alternates.  Some years we have 8th graders that graduated come back to the team as a 9th grader, but not always.

In Northeast Ohio, we are fortunate to have many invitational competitions within a one hour drive.  This year, we plan to attend 5 invitational competitions before heading to our regional competition.  The invitational competitions are a great way for our students to test their building event devices and get constructive advice from event judges.  It is also a great way for new students to learn about the structure of the competition. 

We also try to periodically have family potluck dinners to provide students and parents a chance to get to know one another.  A highlight of the year is when(if) we go to the State Competition.  The students are dismissed from school mid-day on Friday so we can travel to the State Competition at The Ohio State University.  Each family makes their own travel arrangements and hotel reservations, and we usually all stay at the same hotel. The night before the competition, most of the families go to a video game / bar and grill type of place.  We all have dinner, play video games and win tickets for silly prizes.  Then we head back to the hotel and try to get to sleep at a reasonable hour.  The next morning, we are full of excitement as we head to campus for the beginning of the competition.  After a long day of walking across The Ohio State campus multiple times, we usually have dinner together while we wait for the award ceremony.  We all have many fond memories of our trips to the State Competition.  I hope we are able to go again this year.

Science Olympiad First Parent Meeting

We recently met with parents (new and old) to recruit coaches for our middle school Science Olympiad team.  Our team is coached by parents with support from the school.  At the middle school level, the students still need to learn skills like organization, time management, research skills (thank you Google), and how to use power tools!  The students need an adult to help them learn these skills, as well as the science content, and so each event needs a dedicated coach.  I wanted to share with you some of the things I said to the parents as we talked about being a coach for a Science Olympiad event.

1.  For our team structure, Science Olympiad is not an activity where you can drop off your child, go run errands, and come back to pick them up in a few hours.  This is like a travel baseball team where at various times you may be needed to be the base running coach, batting coach, driver, team manager, or snack provider.  There is a job for everyone, and we need every parent to help in some way.

2.  You don't need to be "good" at science, just good at managing the kids.  Your primary job is to keep the kids on task, help them organize the information they are learning, and help them read and understand the rules and event parameters.  We need you to schedule a time for your event to meet and practice, and help the kids set goals for the next practice or next competition.  The kids are pretty good at learning the science when provided with a structure.

3.  Our team will become an extended family.  Like many travel sports teams, we will spend a lot of time together at practices and competitions.  During this time, we will get to know one another and offer support when needed.  We will try to organize social activities for the families to foster this friendly and supportive atmosphere among the kids and families.

4.  No one is judging you on your coaching ability based on how your event performs.  The event performance is really up to the kids, and the effort they exert to improve between competitions.  Some events will do well, some will fail completely.  It is all part of the experience, and we often learn more from our failures than from our successes.  We will appreciate your efforts, no matter the end result.  Because without your help, we would not be able to offer this experience to our kids.

5.  As parents, we are asked to do many things for our children.  Most parents that get involved with Science Olympiad love the experience, not only for their children, but for themselves as well.  Parents love learning new things too, and science is a fascinating subject.  And it makes for great dinner conversations!

Log Books for Building Events

The 2014-2015 Science Olympiad Season have begun, and it is time to share some more experiences with you. 

I recently received a question about log books and what the format should be.  Here was my response:

I think the information needed in a log book will be specific to the event.
Usually there is some indication of what to include in the event rules. I
do not know of any specific format that must be used, so long as it includes
the relevant information.

I looked through past event coaching guidelines for Wright Stuff, and below
are the items to include in a flight log. I imagine you could create a
table with column headings for each parameter, and for each launch, the
students would record this information. Then this table would be submitted
to the judges during impound.

* 6 parameters for 10 previous flights prior to competition

* 3 required parameters

* Motor size before windup

* Winds on the motor at launch

* Flight time

* 3 Additional parameter examples

* Turns remaining at landing

* Estimated peak flight height

* Estimated flight path diameter

* Torque at launch


One side note regarding any log books or graphs that are turned in during
impound: Always make several copies. One copy can be turned in to the
judges, one copy can stay in their binder (if allowed during competition)
and one can be used for the next competition. Judges do not always give
back the log book or graphs, or they are misplaced.


I hope this helps. Good luck.



Lucy

End of the Season

It is with a mixture of relief and regret that another Science Olympiad season is over.  Our young team scored well at our regional competition, but not well enough to advance to the State competition.  Our team had attended the State competition the past several years, and so there is a measure of disappointment of not getting to that level this year.  But there is also a lesson to be learned by my young team, and that every event counts and every point counts.  If we have a few weak events, it can pull the team down and prevent them from advancing to the next level.  It is an important lesson for new students to learn, and to understand the impact every event has on the team score.

The other side, relief that the season is over, stems from not having to put any more work into the team for a few months.  Coaches, whether teachers or parents, put a lot of time into scheduling practices and working with the students, and when that commitment is over for the year, there is a feeling of relief with the hope of a little more free time.  This begins the time of rejuvenation, a little break to recharge before the season begins again in the fall.  But there is never a question of will I coach again in the fall, just how long until we begin a new season, full of new hopes and anticipation for new achievements.  So goodbye until next year, when we begin another season of  Science Olympiad competitions.

Last Minute Reminders for students before attending a Science Olympiad Competition

It is a few days before a Science Olympiad competition, and I am sharing comments and suggestions with the whole team.  While I offer words of encouragement, I also need to remind my middle school students about some practical issues and helpful strategies.  Here are a few things I remind them to do:
1.  Make sure you bring everything you need for your events.  This includes pencils, binders, goggles, study sheets, supplies.  It can be helpful to have each student make up their own pre-competition check list of what to bring.
2.   Don't assume your partner will bring all their supplies - call them and make sure you know who is bringing the goggles, or binder, or event supplies.
3.  Don't leave the event early, even if you have finished the test.  Look it over again, make sure you didn't miss a section, or look for errors.  You should be the last group to leave the room.
4.  Know your team number, and write it on every paper you turn in.
5.  If the test is long, ask the event supervisor if you can split the test.  Each partner should look over their half of the test for about 20 min, then switch tests.  Look for questions you know and can quickly (and correctly) answer.  Many times the questions you know are on the last page.  You don't have to take the test in number order, jump around to make sure you find the questions you can answer first.
6.  Use the test to take the test.  If a question asks about units, look for a later question with a number with those units.  When you are matching words with definitions, a clue may be found in a later question. 

7.  When there is 5 minutes left, fill in any multiple choice answers that are still blank with random guesses.  You may get lucky and answer one correctly.  (But ask the event supervisor if there is a penalty for wrong answers first).
8.  Know the rules for your event.  If it seems the event supervisor may not be following the rules properly, politely ask the event supervisors to clarify and check the rules.
9.  Thank the event supervisor for running the event as you leave the room.  Event supervisors spend a lot of time preparing and grading the tests, and they appreciate your kind comments.
10.  Make new friends with students on other teams, and have fun.

Role of a Supporting Partner

It is a few days before the next Science Olympiad Competition, and your coach tells you that you will be going into an event as a substitute.  This may be an event for which you have never studied and you may feel overwhelmed and nervous.  You will now be a supporting partner, and you can contribute to the success of your team in that event.  As the supporting partner, you may help write down the answers or look up information in the binder while your partner analyzes the questions.  As the supporting partner, you may use your general science knowledge to answer a few questions.  Those few questions you answer correctly may be the difference between first and second place.   Every point counts.  View your role as a supporting partner as an opportunity to help your partner, to help your team, and to learn about a new area of science.

One time last year, my team was attending a new invitational competition.  There was a conflict with one partner for Solar System, so I put in a 6th grader as a supporting partner with an experienced 9th grader. While the 6th grader wasn't very excited about his new role, he went in and tried to help where he could. After the event, the two partners talked about how the 6th grader caught an error in one question, based on his general science knowledge.  During the award ceremony, our team won its first team trophy at an invitational.  After we reviewed the results of the competition, we discovered that our team placed one point above the next team, and that one point came from winning the tie breaker in Solar System.  That one point made the difference, all because a supporting partner paid attention during the event.