The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
On Saturday, February 25, a select group of students from La Harpe Junior High competed in a Science Olympiad competition at Western Illinois University for junior high and high school students. The Science Olympiad was founded in 1984 and is the premier team STEM competition in the nation, providing standards-based challenges to 6,000 teams at 425 tournaments in all 50 states.
This group of junior high students from La Harpe worked for over a month preparing for the contest. They studied, practiced, and built projects to test. Each project that was built had to have a record of the results throughout their testing period that was presented to the judges prior to the testing of their project at the competition.
There were a total of 23 events and tests that these students competed in, some as a team of two, and some as individuals.
The projects they were tested in were Anatomy and Physiology, Bio Process Lab, Bridge Building, Can’t Judge a Powder, Codebusters, Crave the Wave, Crime Busters, Disease Detectives, Dynamic Planet, Experimental Design, Fast Facts, Flight, Forestry, Green Generation, Meteorology, Road Scholar, Rocks and Minerals, Roller Coaster, Solar System, Sound of Music, Storm the Castle (trebuchet), Wheeled Vehicle, and Write It Do It.
The students did so well and competed with all their effort. At the awards ceremony, La Harpe did amazingly well, coming in second place overall. In total, they won 10 second place medals and four first place medals, the second place trophy as a team for their combined efforts, and the Spirit Award plaque. The Spirit Award plaque was awarded for having the best attitudes, respect towards others, teamwork, and sportsmanship, including having joy in participating in the competition.
Because they came in second overall, they will get to go to the State Science Olympiad competition in Champaign, at the University of Illinois on April 22.
Students selected to participate in the Science Olympiad were the following eighth graders: Clara Amschler, Raina Flynn, Myles Neff, Jaylie Garrison, AnaLeigh Livingston. The sixth graders who participated were the following: Heidi Amschler, Aimee Eggleston, Aaliyah Bearce, Tinley Covert.
There was also one third grader who competed in the competition, Barrett Amschler.
They were coached by Mr. John Amschler.
These students all worked diligently on their projects before the competition and showed that hard work, determination, and intellect could take them far.
The schools involved in this competition were all professional and respectful, showing their love of science and learning.
The La Harpe students involved in this competition were awarded not only physical trophies and medals, but also the gift of knowledge and the wisdom that comes from working together as a team to complete a goal.