Every year, the Palatine Science Olympiad team hosts the Palatine Invitational, the biggest invite of the season garnering 30+ schools from around the Chicagoland area, right here at Palatine High School. This year, the invite took place on Nov. 23.
Science Olympiad is an after-school extracurricular catered toward all students with a passion for science. There is an event for almost anyone: Chemistry Lab, Fossils, Entomology and Electric Vehicle, to name a few.
Every month, invites are hosted on a Saturday, where teams compete against each other, usually from 8 a.m to 4 p.m. The day is divided into one-hour-long blocks, with an assortment of events running at different times of the day. Awards are delivered to the top four teams who managed to outscore the competition in every event.
For many teams, including the Palatine Science Olympiad team, this is the first Science Olympiad invite of the year. It’s a good opportunity for competitors to try out new events, and see if they would be interested in studying for that event or not. For new members, it’s an important preview of what being an Olympian looks like, and of the potential that they have at the events in which they’ve chosen to compete.
Palatine started the season off with a bang, with the varsity team placing seventh in the division. Many members of the team medaled: Abir Shahid and Tanya Saxena took first in Anatomy and Physiology, Zara Stanimirova and Zina Patel placed first in Astronomy. Zara Stanimirova, Zina Patel and Abir Shahid also won first place in Codebusters. Sam Chau placed third in Geologic Mapping and Joaquin Flores and Jacob O’Hare’s robot took second in Robot Tour.
There are also things to do around the school during downtime. Palatine hosted movies and a game console for students to kill time with while they’re not testing. To keep students engaged before awards come out, Palatine also has a tradition of hosting silly mini-events for people to win prizes like candy; which school has the best T-shirt design, who can balance a ruler stick on their hand for the longest, and many more.
For those who didn’t medal, the results serve as motivation. There are many more chances to win.
“A lot of us were getting back into the swing of things, and that there shouldn’t be pressure to medal at the very start, as long as we’re focusing on improving,” says Dex Du’Prey, a member of Palatine High School’s Science Olympiad team. “I really like my events this year, so I think it’ll be motivation for me to work hard.”
Palatine Science Olympiad competes at the next invite at Harlem High School, taking place on Dec. 7th.
