Clark’s Science Olympiad Charges to Nationals
By Lauren Martires
By Lauren Martires 04/09/15
Since the dawn of the 2014-2015 school year, Clark’s very own Science Olympiad has been hard at work preparing for the state competition in March. It was a long and tedious journey, but the team’s blood, brains, and tears were definitely worth it.
“
All of this was honestly lots of tedious work, and we would even get discouraged by the frustrations that would occur when we can’t get everything perfect.
Although the club is not as well known as other clubs like NHS, HOSA, and Key Club, Science Olympiad truly deserves more than a second glance. Promoting learning, teamwork, and incredible discipline, the members have been studying almost every day leading up to the competition.
Being a new member to the club, one of the most surprising things to me was that my peers actually wanted their own success enough to study extra science-related topics on top of school work. Ranging from knowledge testing to engineering new designs, there was never a question that these students worked their brains off to do well.
It definitely paid off too - this year, Clark High School’s Science Olympiad won the state competition.
On The Road To Nationals
There’s no denying the fact that many of the members are probably tired and worn out from their hard work on the way to state. However, determination and discipline are necessary now more than ever.
There’s a lot of pressure put on the team this year to do their best. Each student competing expects the best out of themselves and that’s what’s going to really push the team towards placing.
Said Rachel Zhang, Science O’s historian.
This year’s national competition will take place in Lincoln, Nebraska and 20 members have been selected to compete.
The 2015 national team includes:
Kevin Meng, Shivani Bisen, Sabrina Ho, Sean Dyaico, Michael Swain, Cameron Both, Mira Dani, Bryan Rouse, Alex Wrote, Derek Stratton, Samuel Haug, Annetoinette Figueroa, Cassandra Ho, Shan Reddy, Leanne Chung, Alisha Yi, Aaron Kuo, Rachel Zhang,Santosha Veera, and Sharvari Gupta.
“This year, our main goal is to be able to build the strongest possible team we can get, and even though we cannot expect a trophy to reward us, this experience that Clark is able to get is already phenomenal,” said Rachel.
Nationals is not only going to bring the team closer together, but will also allow Clark to network and bond with others who share the same passion for science and engineering.