The Illinois Science Olympiad is a fun and exciting competition where middle school and high school students from all over the state come together to show off their science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) skills. Teams from different schools compete in a bunch of cool events—like building towers, launching planes, solving crimes (like real detectives!), and answering science questions.
Each team has around 15 students, and everyone gets to pick events they’re good at or interested in. Some events are tests, others are hands-on challenges, and some involve building things ahead of time.
The goal? Work together, learn new things, and have a blast doing science! You even get the chance to win medals and trophies—and if your team does really well, you can move on to the state or even national competition!
Practices will be held during certain days in the week and run from the end of the school day until 4:15 PM Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Practices will be schedule based on event---For example, the team for Anatomy could practice on Mondays, while the team for Code Busters would have practice on Thursdays. In short, practices won't be everyday. If a student is in two event teams, those event practices will be held on different days. Students will be able to take the activity bus on practice days if they are not able to be picked up from the school. Please see the office staff for information regarding activity bus sign-up.
Please reach out to Ms. Villanueva for more information: villanuevam@hawthorn73.org
Thank you very much for your patience with the sign-up process. We have a very large team this year, which can be both exciting and tricky. Again, thank you so much for your patience and support. I have also been getting questions on how to sign-up to volunteer to lead groups. In terms of volunteering, there are multiple ways you can sign up. I have released a google form to the students in the Science Olympiad Google Classroom. You can also sign up through this link. If the link does not work for you, please reach out and I can email a copy of the form or send home a physical copy.
Along with this, I have been getting some questions about the bi-weekly schedule. Due to the large number of events, I am hosting practice for 2-3 events per day. These practices are from 2:35-4:30 each day. Students who are taking the activity bus home will be leaving practice at 4:15 each day. Each day will have a different event; each day was carefully planned so that there will be no cross-over with events. This means your student will not have to miss a practice for one event just to get to another event's practice. I will get into more detail on this during the parent meeting.
A parent meeting on November 13th from 5:00 PM- 6:00 PM.
At the parent meeting, I will be addressing:
- The tentative Calendar for the year
- Expectations for Science Olympiad
- Some study materials that will be available to your students
- A little bit about who I am (Ms. Villanueva)
- Answering questions you may have.
If you are unable to attend the meeting, I will be sending the meeting materials via email.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
