Pembroke Hill took first place in both the middle and high school divisions for the Science Olympiad this weekend.
About 300 students from 24 schools participated in the Kansas City “City Regional” at MCC-Penn Valley. This is considered the most competitive region in the state.
Oak Grove which took first place last year, placed second. Head Coach, Tina Durham, is proud of how her students worked extra hours before and after school to prepare. She also says that many of her students go on to pursue STEM fields.
Cool kids compete in science Olympiad @MCCKansasCity pic.twitter.com/YoVHFYYu1p
— Jane Monreal (@JaneMonreal) March 4, 2017
"Things we try to do in our classrooms but we're constricted to what we need to do in our curriculum a lot of times - to do state assessment. But they get to do all these things that... It's upper high school level, it's college level science that they get exposed to at this early age. And so many of the Olympians go into those fields," said Durham.
"I have paleontologists that did fossils. I have engineers that built planes and robots. I have doctors that did anatomy and physiology so that's kind of a neat thing to see that it sparked that interest and they kept going with it," said Durham.
Other events are named Disease Detectives, Microbe Mission, Bridge Building, Wind Power, Electric Vehicle, Dynamic Planet and Invasive Species.
MCC-Penn Valley has hosted the Missouri Science Olympiad regionals for about the last 15 years.
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Jane Monreal can be reached at JANE.MONREAL@KSHB.com.
