The eighth grade Science Olympiad team from the James E. Bazzell Middle School earned first place honors Saturday at the Madisonville Region of the Kentucky Science Olympiad tournament. The championship team will advance to the state Science Olympiad tournament next month at Western Kentucky University.
The nationally-acclaimed Science Olympiad program challenges science students to display their scientific knowledge in multiple areas. According to the Science Olympiad website, “what began as a grassroots assembly of science teachers is now one of the premier science competitions in the nation, providing rigorous, standards-based challenges to 7,600 teams in 50 states. The site also notes that “Science Olympiad's ever-changing line-up of events in all STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) disciplines exposes students to practicing scientists and career choices, and energizes classroom teachers with a dynamic content experience.”
Bazzell Middle School---under the leadership of educators Vanous Brown and Angel Bonds---sent an eighth grade team and a seventh grade team to the annual competition. The eighth graders took top honors while the seventh grade team placed third.
First place winners among the eighth grade team included Taylor Carter and Jae McReynolds in Rocks and Mineral. Carter and Katherine Foster in Anatomy, Foster and Riley Stinson in Food Science, and Foster in Mission Possible. Sarah Hartman and Molly Jones were first in Optics, Tori Langman and Madison Woods were first in Crime Busters and Wright Stuff. Billy Lim and Kayden Whitney were first in Reach for the Stars and Meteorology. Ava Noe and Kierra Owens were first in Hoover Craft.
Second place winners for the eighth grade were Carter and McReynolds in Bottle Rocket, Carter and Stinson in Ecology, Hartman and Jones in Invasive Species and Towers, Langman and Woods in Disease Detective, Lim and Whitney in Microbe Mission and Road Scholar, and Noe and Owens in the categories of Write It-Di It and Dynamic Planet.
Eighth grade science students earning third place awards were Foster, Hartman, and Jones in Experimental Design and McReynolds and Stinson in Wind Power.
The eighth grade team will advance to the Kentucky Science Olympiad competition on Saturday, April 22 at Western Kentucky University.
The Bazzell seventh grade Science Olympiad team was third overall in the competition but had several students score first place honors. Included on the list were Maggie Boucher and Leah Hartman in Wind Power, Peyton Etheridge and Ivan Jines in Towers, Timothy Spearman in Bottle Rocket and Ecology, and Austin Stinson and Huston Wilkins in Experimental Design and Scrambler.
Seventh grade second place winners were Ulaylah Baskins and Etheridge in Rocks and Mineral, Boucher and Hartman in Reach for the Stars, and Spearman in Optics.
Third place seventh grader finishers included Baskins and Etheridge in Disease Detective and Dynamic Planet, Boucher and Hartman in Invasive Species and Crime Busters, Bryson Chastain and Hayden Higdon in Road Scholar, Hoover Craft, Anatomy, and Write-It Do-It, Jines in Meteorology, Jines and Spearman in Microbe Mission, and the team of Stinson and Wilkins in Food Science.