Science Olympiad at HCC Brandon

FLATE supports many STEM based initiatives. This past Saturday, February 4, Hillsborough Community College’s Brandon Campus hosted a Science Olympiad. This Olympiad lines up with FLATE's mission to get more children involved in STEM. The Olympiad had a tremendous turnout of over 500 children. The children competed in teams, and there were 22 middle school teams and 25 high school teams. The Olympiad offered several different events that challenged the students in a variety of ways.

Some events required planning prior to the Olympiad. An example of this is the Hovercraft event where a hovercraft was built prior to the event and brought to the Olympiad completed. After bringing their completed hovercraft to the Olympiad, the students had to test to see if their hovercraft functioned properly. The event also included a written test with physics questions. 

There were also events where students got no prior planning and completed the whole project during the event. One example of this type of event is Game On, where students had to build a video game on the spot. Another example is Forensics, where the students were given evidence and performed chemistry tests on the evidence to uncover “who done it”.

This Olympiad was the fourth one hosted by Regional Director Dr. Scott Behrens. Dr. Behrens and Tiffany Marshall were the masterminds behind this Olympiad, and were in charge of coordinating and supervising the events, accommodating the students, and communicating with the coaches.

Dr. Behrens said his favorite part of the Olympiad was “the excitement at the awards ceremony, and to just see the kids’ faces of accomplishment after working so hard all year.” Marshall said the highlight of this Olympiad was a new social media based award this year, called the Spirit Award. “It gives the students who may not have performed so well at the events the opportunity to still be seen and recognized,” Marshall said. 

For more information on the Science Olympiad, please visit their webpage here. For more information on FLATE's STEM programs, please visit www.madeinflorida.org and www.fl-ate.org, or contact Dr. Marilyn Barger, Executive Director of FLATE at mbarger@fl-ate.org.