Students Gear Up to Compete in Science Meet

It’s a different sort of spring break, all right. Sunny days spent at the laboratory or hitting the books. But this is the kind of thing you do when you’re a member of a Science Olympiad team going for its fourth win.

On Saturday, the 16-member team from El Rancho Middle School in Anaheim hopes to win the Southern California Science Olympiad championship title for the fourth year running. The Olympiad will be held at Cal State Long Beach.

By winning at the state level (contests in Southern and Northern California count as separate state competitions), they secure a trip to the nationals in Spokane, Wash.

Many team members began studying last September.

“I did a little every day,” said 13-year-old Justin Houman. Students gave up weekends and lunch breaks to study and work with their coaches. Parents pitched in. Houman’s dad, an engineer, helped design a catapult for the trajectory catapult event.

“More than intelligence, you need kids with dedication,” said coach Harris Oishi, one of El Rancho’s three coaches.

The coaches--all science teachers at El Rancho for over 20 years--put in about as many hours as their students. Their dedication has continued, despite the ongoing struggle between teachers and the Orange Unified School District over teacher salaries.

“It’s exciting, invigorating,” said coach Oishi in justifying his commitment.

Featuring 23 events, the Science Olympiad tests students’ knowledge and skills on a variety of subjects, including biology, geology, physics and engineering. Students compete in several events ranging from a written test on rocks and minerals to a bottle-rocket contest.

Though the school took second last year at the nationals, El Rancho did not start its Olympiad career as a champion.

After reading about the contest in the newspaper, Richard Walker--a science teacher at El Rancho since 1969--put together a team 12 years ago. It took eight years to win the state competition.

Walker said that every year, he and the other coaches learn a little more. Each year at nationals, they’ve improved their ranking.

Earlier this week, six kids and two coaches were busy in the lab by 8:30 a.m. Walker asked 13-year-old Christopher Tran to calculate a mountain’s incline from a United States Geological Survey map for the event. Christopher used his ruler and protractor to measure distances, but his answers were slightly off. Walker told Christopher he must concentrate harder on obtaining exact measurements. He added, “always show your numbers and how you get your calculations. That way, you’ll know how you got your answer.”

Close by, several students watched as Oishi set up a beaker with vinegar, two small copper plates, electric wire and a lightbulb to add to an already elaborate contraption, with its numerous wires, levers and motors.

The device demonstrates the transfer of energy from one form to another. In this case, it will permit electrons to flow through the wire to the vinegar before they illuminate the lightbulb and accumulate on the copper plates. This will earn the team extra credit for completing a chemical-to-electromagnetic-energy transfer.

It’s important to conceptualize science instead of learning it out of a book, said Galen Carlson, director of the science education program at Cal State Fullerton. That’s a reason for the Science Olympiad.

Conceptualizing science also is a goal of a national science education reform movement that seeks to raise the low scores U.S. students show in science, compared with their peers in other countries.

The Science Olympiad makes science real for kids, say those involved with the program.

“It’s one thing to try to study science in a closed room,” said Steve Tang, parent of one El Rancho Olympiad student and a mechanical engineer. “It’s another thing to be able to put your hands on it.”

Tang admitted that at the middle school level, kids can only grasp the rudiments of what they learn. But he said it doesn’t matter.

“Familiarity really does accentuate their learning process. This is the beginning of a building block for them,” he said.

Coach Walker boasts of former students who have become doctors, engineers and research scientists. And these El Rancho students say when they grow up, they want to do the same.