Upper Schoolers compete at Harvard University Science Olympiad Invitational

On Saturday, February 1, fifteen Upper School students traveled to Cambridge to compete in the Harvard University Science Olympiad Invitational. The seniors lead the team to another outstanding finish in what is always a competitive invitational tournament that includes laboratory, engineering, and field events along with traditional events in biology, chemistry, physics, and earth sciences.  The team placed 19th out of 60 teams from around New England and well ahead of the other teams from Maine! The guest speaker at the awards ceremony, 2019 Nobel winner William Kaelin, spoke about his experiences as a student, medical doctor, and research scientist. His advice to the future scientists and scholars: work with people who are smarter than you, have fun doing your work (or find something else), and be a good and ethical person.

Highlights included a third-place medal for Clara Sandberg ’20 and Haoming Ma ’20 in Astronomy, a 4th place finish for Abby Aleshire ’20 and Clara in an airplane engineering event, a 6th place finish for Emily Wagg ’20 and Henry Wagg ’22 in a vehicle engineering event, and a 10th place finish in Forensics for Abby and Owen Anderson ’21. Other strong finishes included Geologic Mapping (11th place for Emily and Abby), protein modeling (13th place for Sophi Aronson ’20, Ellis Dougherty ’20, and Clara), oceanography (15th for Emily and Mike Veroneau ’21), genetics (16th for Ellis and Abby), Experimental Design (16th for Clara, Semma Twining ’21, and Aidan Kieffer ’21), and an engineering event called “Boomilever” (17th place for Owen and Joey Ansel-Mullen ’21).  Top 25 finishes went to Selina He ’21 and Julia Werner ’22 for the Chemistry Lab; Sophi and Ellis for the design, construction, and performance of a musical instrument; Nicholas Werner ’20 and Owen for the Circuitry Lab; and Nicholas and Haoming for their voltage-detecting build event.

Students worked for weeks studying new concepts and designing, building, and testing engineering events to prepare for the competition. We compete again with two teams in April at the Maine State Science Olympiad tournament. The team was coached by science teachers Wendy Curtis and Carol Titterton.