By Harlan Rose
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Elementary students from 10 schools around the island were able to experience the process of creating a science project through the Elementary Science Olympiad (ESO) competition held at MHS on April 11. The students were able to choose a scientific field in which they were interested in, complete a project and compete against teams from other schools.
“(ESO) is a competition in which students either take a test in one of 30 (plus) STEM areas or they build a device meeting meticulous standards and test that device against other schools,” explained MHS Science Olympiad adviser Matthew Capps. “The neatest thing about Olympiad is it is doing science. This isn’t some classroom where you are sitting there being bored out of you mind, it is learning and using new principles of science that are not typically taught in today’s science classrooms.”
While MHS Science Olympiad students did not get involved in the ESO competition, Capps hopes to see this change in the future despite his leaving. “We have amazing students that participate in Science Olympiad and robotics that would love to help area schools in those programs but the hard part is getting the area schools to accept the help,” said Capps. “I think that many times the schedules just don’t match up and as teachers we are not really used to accepting outside help.”
A smaller, mini-invitational ESO competition will be held at MHS on May 23.