Science Olympiad Summer Institute

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Science Olympiad Summer Institute this year, and came away from it totally recharged and excited to get my team going this year. During the course of the week long institute, we were able to attend sessions for every event that will be a part of the Olympiad competition this year. During the next few weeks I plan to submit a post for each specific event with all of the helpful hints I gathered at the summer institute. Today I wanted to post some of the overall pieces of advice I brought home with me about setting up and preparing a successful team.

1. You do not have to be an expert in every subject to be a successful coach or set up a successful team. They really emphasized putting the burden on the students to find the information they need to prepare for an event. They suggested giving the students a few textbooks, along with the state and national science olympiad websites and letting them go from there to find what they need.

2. Have the students put together a folder of information they can use to prepare for an event, even if they will not be able to bring that folder with them at the competition. If the students are allowed to bring the folder of reference materials with them, they will be better equipped to use it if they have found the information and put it together themselves.

3. Have three or more students prepare for each event, even if only two will be allowed to compete in the event. This way, if you have scheduling conflicts, or students that are not able to compete at the last minute, you will still be able to compete.

4. Nothing can take the place of good old fashioned practice! In the past it has been hard for me to find things for my students to do to practice, but I came away from the summer institute with a lot of great activity ideas that you can even squeeze into a lunch time meeting. You can look forward to reading them as I post about each of the events!

Please feel free to email me if you have any specific questions about the summer institute or science olympiad in general.

Kristi Tolman
Chandler High School
chsscienceclub@gmail.com