La Plata takes second overall at regional Science Olympiad

By MARCELA JOHNSON
Daily Press Staff
Silver City’s La Plata Middle School took second place overall at the regional Science Olympiad held Jan. 31 at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.
Students form teams of two or three to compete in events that ask them to test and build in various areas of science, technology, engineering and math. The team placed in the top three for 16 of the 23 events.
Eighth-graders Madison Nations and Tasha Pipkins are co-captains for the team, which means that alongside working on their own events, they help their teammates and attend captains’ meetings.
“I like competing with my friends,” Nations said.
Pipkins said that she enjoys studying and learning about the different aspects of her events, particularly Potions and Poisons, which focuses on the chemical properties and effects of common toxins and poisons.
Nations said that she likes Codebusters — an event where competitors decode encrypted messages — because of the puzzle aspect.
Seventh-graders Amberlyn Mundhenke and Esperanza Sedillo said they joined the team because they like science.
“If I want to survive in a zombie apocalypse, I have to know science,” Mundhenke said.
The pair are partners on several events, including one that asks them to build a functional hovercraft.
“We’ve been working on this for a few months,” Sedillo said.
The two said that they are working on making their machine lighter before the state competition with the aim of placing first.
Eighth-grader Venny Cozza said he joined Science Olympiad because of his friends and liking science. He said he enjoyed this year’s new events.
Cozza said his favorite was Experimental Design, because mistakes along the way can fit into the event. Experimental Design asks competitors to design, execute and write a description of an experiment based on the topic and materials provided.
He said that staying on top of the work that competitors have to complete is important for making it to state.
Seventh-grader John Peterson said that he joined Science Olympiad because of his love of building and crafting. He said he likes the teamwork aspect and will compete again next year.
“My first year has gone pretty good,” Peterson said. “It’s really fun, but you have to work really hard in order to win a medal.”
Devin Berge, a La Plata seventh-grade science teacher and the team coach, said that she was not surprised by the win, as the students had been working hard.
Berge said that the team will be digging deeper into their events for the state competition, and that the team meets after school three times a week to get ready.
She said that having the competition at NMSU was a great opportunity for the students to talk to university people in the sciences.
Berge has been doing Science Olympiad for nine years in the district, and said that it is a great opportunity for students to challenge themselves. She said that the 12-student team had to work hard to cover all of the 23 events. Not participating in an event can hurt the team’s overall scores.
Silver High School did not compete in the Science Olympiad competition this year for the first time in several years. Joyce Barela, Silver High School’s principal, said that the goal is to have a Science Olympiad team return to the high school next year. She said that with high turnover, the new science teachers at the high school wanted to focus on their teaching before picking up extracurriculars.
The La Plata team will go to state competition at New Mexico Tech in Socorro on Feb. 28. The students said that they hope to go to national competition this summer — and, failing that, then getting into the top five teams in the state will suffice.
Marcela Johnson may be reached at [email protected].