Wednesday, April 2, 2014

YMS Excels at the Nebraska State Science Olympiad

The Nebraska State Science Olympiad was held on Saturday, March 29, 2014 at UNL’s East Campus. York Middle School competed in the B Division which is open to 6th, 7th and 8th graders across the state of Nebraska.

YMS entered into the following events:

CRIME BUSTERS - Erika Hinz & Kinsley Flynt participated in this category where they were given a scenario, a collection of evidence and possible suspects and students had to perform a series of tests to solve the crime.

HELICOPTERS: Luke Stuckey & Mason Linder had to design, construct and test free flight rubber-powered helicopters to achieve maximum time aloft.

ROAD SCHOLAR: Simon Otte & Nick Weskamp earned 5th place by answering interpretive questions that use one or more state highway maps, USGS topographic maps, a road atlas or satellite/ aerial images.

ROTOR EGG DROP: Lauren Riley & Nicole Mittman earned 3rd place as they constructed an unpowered, autorotation helicopter device, which uses one or more helicopter rotors to safely transport a raw chicken egg from a specified height to the floor.

SOUNDS OF MUSIC: Holly Rockenbach & Ann Magner won 1st place as they built two instruments based on a 12 tone tempered scale, prepare to describe principles behind their operation and be able to perform a major scale, required and chosen melody with each.

WRITE IT/DO IT: Ally Warneke & Nicole Mittman won 1st place as one student wrote a description of an object and how to build it and then the other student attempted to construct the object from this description.

QUIZ BOWL: Simon Otte earned 3rd place as each school could have one student to answer questions.

Sponsoring Organizations were University of Nebraska - Lincoln: College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources, Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Center for Science, Mathematics, and Computer Education, Nebraska Association of Teachers of Science, Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium, ESU #10 & #16.

All in all, 26 different events were offered. York Middle School entered into 7 different events and brought home five medals with two 1st places, two 3rd places, and one 5th place.

YMS Science Olympiad Sponsor, Pam Petersen, had this to say about York Middle School’s team participating in this event for the first time, “I was amazed that we did so well. I told the kids that I would be ecstatic if we placed in one event! Holly & Ann's instruments were amazing and were a group effort with the help of our shop teacher Jason Hirschfeld and other experts in the musical field. There were over 700 students from across the state there to compete. Some schools have actual classes to prepare students for this competition. The top team overall gets to compete at Nationals - this year in Orlando Florida. Our students are very talented in many ways and are part of plays, sports, and weight lifting; which limits their time to spend on Science Olympiad.”

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