Science Olympiad to take place at the Galveston campus of Texas A&M University on Feb. 15    

Texas A&M University at Galveston will host a regional Science Olympiad on Feb. 15 (Saturday) with concurrent science competitions from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. at various campus locations.

Science Olympiad’s ever-changing line-up of events in all STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) disciplines exposes students to practicing scientists and career choices, and energizes classroom teachers with a dynamic content experience.

The Texas Science Olympiad (TSO) tournament is a rigorous academic interscholastic competition that consists of a series of team events, which students (grades 7-12) prepare for during the year. The competitions follow the format of popular board games, TV shows, and athletic games. These challenging and motivational events are well balanced between the various science and engineering disciplines of biology, earth science, chemistry, physics, computers, technology and inquiry. There is also a balance between events requiring knowledge of facts, concepts, processes, skills, and science applications.

Dr. Melanie Lesko, Texas A&M Regional Science Olympiad director and Texas A&M Galveston interim department head of Marine Sciences, said this is the seventh year that the Galveston campus has hosted the Olympiad.

“Our Olympiad is made possible by hard work and preparation involving many of our faculty, staff and student volunteers, as well as a few folks from the local community,” Lesko said. “The competition is a fun and challenging day for future scientists and engineers.

Lesko said up to 500 visitors are expected to be on campus. She says many will be here for the first time and some are expected to return as students on our campus.

For more information about the national Science Olympiad organization, and event descriptions go to http://soinc.org , and for more information about the state competition go to http://outreach.science.tamu.edu/scienceolympiad.php