By Wyatt Swartzendruber-
New to the activities scene this year is Science Olympiad, headed by science teacher Alaina Appley who became familiar with the program as a student teacher. Mrs. Appley describes Science Olympiad as “a team competition where players compete in 23 different events that are building labs and test based.”

Unlike an athletic sport or an art program, Mrs. Appley hopes that Science Olympiad will be an academic club where kids can get excited about science and engineering.

The participants in Science Olympiad practice on average eight times a month for their regular events and once a week for their building events. They will be competing twice; their first competition is at Truman Elementary School in Cedar Rapids in February as a practice. Their second competition is a state-wide competition held at Coe College in late March.

Emma Bradbury, a participant of Science Olympiad, joined because she had fun doing it in middle school and that it would look good on college applications. She participates in three events: Disease Detectives (Epidemiology, the study of medicine that deals with the incidence, distribution, and possible control of diseases), Dynamic Planet (which deals with glaciers and climate control, and Compound Machines.

Emma’s favorite parts of Science Olympiad are socializing with other participants at competitions and team building.