Last Saturday, Rocky Mount Academy’s Science Olympiad team competed in the regional tournament of North Carolina Science Olympiad (NCSO) on East Carolina University’s campus. NCSO aims to encourage students in grades K-12 to take an interest in STEM. The organization sets out to host “rigorous academic interscholastic competitions that consist of a series of different hands-on, interactive, challenging and inquiry-based events that are well balanced between the various disciplines of biology, earth science, environmental science, chemistry, physics, engineering and technology.” The RMA team competed alongside twelve other high school teams from the eastern part of North Carolina (lab coats and all) and participated in a total of fifteen events. This year, Juhi Salunke (9th), Elias Moore (10th), Neha Baliga, Lindy Pittman, Emily Cheston, Maxwell Miller (11th), and Co-Presidents Emma Grace Sprinkle and Jami Perkins (12th) traveled with Mrs. Lehnes to Greenville in hopes of winning big.

The team’s initial victory of the day came when freshman Juhi Salunke placed first, on her own, in Hydrogeology. This event focused on a variety of topics including groundwater and the water cycle, aquifers, wetlands, and groundwater contaminants. According to Juhi, “The most difficult part would be showing the direction of the water flow between wells on a diagram.” Next, Emily Cheston and a new addition to this year’s team, Lindy Pittman, placed second in Disease Detectives. This event, sponsored by the CDC, tested competitors’ abilities to interpret data regarding population growth, infectious diseases, case studies, and other topics under the umbrella of epidemiology and public health. When asked about this event, Lindy Pittman said, “I really enjoyed this event because of its real world application. It’s always interesting to see just how involved science is in our everyday lives. Winning second place was just definitely an added bonus for us.”

The next round of events proved to be even more successful than the first. Two new members, Juhi Salunke and Elias Moore, placed second in an event titled Amazing Mechatronics. This multifaceted event required participants to fix various microcontrollers using hardware and software solutions, and to program projects into a laptop. Elias Moore said that his favorite part of the event was that, “It was really interesting to be able to combine coding and electrical wiring into one event.” AP Biology students, Lindy Pittman and Neha Baliga, placed second in Cell Biology which tested participants’ knowledge of eukaryotic and prokaryotic cells, membrane function, chromosome structure, the cell cycle, and a number of other topics. AP Chemistry students, Jami Perkins and Emily Cheston, placed third in Chemistry Lab. This hands on event was composed of written assessment and lab experiment covering topics in kinetics, and gases. Emily Cheston described her experience in this event as “a satisfying way to build upon what we’ve been practicing in class. It was encouraging to see that Jami and I were still able to perform an experiment outside of the classroom, even without the validation of an instructor along the way.”   

Later in the day, Neha Baliga and Emma Grace Sprinkle secured a third place spot in Anatomy and Physiology. Though a broad and complex topic, participants were tested with a focus on structure and function in the skeletal, muscular, and integumentary systems. When asked about her favorite part, Emma Grace replied, “I’d probably have to say the best part was trying to figure out what each part of the body was with my partner. The most difficult part was naming the muscles on a dead cat, but we placed third and were really happy and surprised!” Juhi Salunke and Elias Moore participated in Fossils and ended up placing third. This event challenged the duo’s ability to recognize specimens from pictures, diagrams, and descriptions. In addition, the event tested on assessing specific characteristics of the fossilized specimens such as preservation, dating, live and environment, and the fossilization process. Juniors Lindy Pittman and Maxwell Miller placed fourth in Write It, Do It, an event which evaluates competitors’ effectiveness in communication. During this event, one partner is shown an object constructed out of multiple materials and is required to write, in as much detail as possible, instructions that will allow their teammate to replicate what they have seen.

As this year of competition comes to a close, Jami Perkins and Emma Grace are proud to have helped lead this team in their most successful year yet. This year, everyone who traveled to the event placed in at least one of their events. When asked about this years’ experience, Jami Perkins said, “Overall, Science Olympiad was a blast! Although it took a lot of hard work and organization, it paid off. I have to say, I was very impressed with how well everyone did. It was a great accomplishment that everyone went home with at least one medal this season, and I hope that this club continues to progress in the upcoming years!” Next year, Co-Presidents Emily Cheston and Neha Baliga hope to lead the team with the same success that the team has achieved this season.