Who: Vermont high school student teams, teachers, and coaches; State Tournament Director Leon Walls; UVM faculty, staff, and student volunteers
What: Vermont Science Olympiad
Where: University of Vermont, Burlington, Vt.
When: Saturday, April 1, 2023, 8:45 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
High School teams from across the state will compete in 2023 Vermont Science Olympiad competition hosted by the University of Vermont on Saturday, April 1. Teams from Burr and Burton Academy, Essex High School, Peoples Academy, Randolph Union High School/Randolph Technical Career Center, St. Johnsbury Academy, and Williamstown High School will compete in this year’s tournament.
Science Olympiad aims to boosts K-12 student and teacher participation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) through exciting tournaments that showcase innovative STEM content. Students are supported by their high school teachers and coaches as well as UVM graduate students, faculty, staff, and students who organize and coordinate the competition.
“I cannot begin to tell you in how many ways this competition changed our students,” said Burr and Burton Science Teacher and Department Chair Rebecca Allen about the winning team she coached in last year’s tournament. “Each of our kids brought something and overcame something.”
Science Olympiad functions much like a team sport requiring preparation, commitment, coaching and practice. School-based teams can bring up to 15 students in grades 9-12 who cross-train for a variety of events in their skill set. Events emphasize collaborative, hands-on participation or tests of knowledge. Students, educators, community mentors and other leaders work together toward a shared goal. By combining events from a variety of disciplines, Science Olympiad encourages a wide cross-section of students to get involved.
Vermont’s Science Olympiad competition is led by State Tournament Director Leon Walls, an associate professor in the Department of Education at UVM. Co-sponsors include UVM Extension 4-H Programs, the College of Education and Social Services (CESS), the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS), and the College of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences (CEMS). In addition, a generous gift provided by Generac Power Systems will support this year’s event.
Employment in STEM occupations has grown 79 percent since 1990, from 9.7 million to more than 17.3 million today, outpacing overall U.S. job growth. In 2018, the Pew Research Center estimated that 71 percent of all jobs required STEM skills.
Science Olympiad lights pathways to apprenticeships, college and careers while developing essential employability skills such as communication, organization, and teamwork – identified as the three top soft skills in new employees according to a LinkedIn survey of hiring managers.
Extracurricular programs like Science Olympiad offer young adults with a glimpse into the future by providing opportunities for mentoring and achieving results. More than three in four female students interested in STEM who have a mentor feel they will be successful pursuing a STEM career.
About the University of Vermont
Since 1791, the University of Vermont has worked to move humankind forward. UVM’s strengths align with the most pressing needs of our time: the health of our societies and the health of our environment. Our size—large enough to offer a breadth of ideas, resources, and opportunities, yet intimate enough to enable close faculty-student mentorship across all levels of study—allows us to pursue these interconnected issues through cross-disciplinary research and collaboration. Providing an unparalleled educational experience for our students, and ensuring their success, are at the core of what we do. As one of the nation’s first land grant universities, UVM advances Vermont and the broader society through the discovery and application of new knowledge.
UVM is derived from the Latin Universitas Viridis Montis (in English, University of the Green Mountains).
BURLINGTON, Vt. — UVM
United States