By Nefertari Elsheikh, staff writer

Townsend Harris High School’s Science Olympiad team recently participated in the annual state level competition. The team consisted of seven seniors, two sophomores, and six juniors, who were selected based on their results at the NYC Regional Competition. The state level competition took place at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, New York. Each student focused on anywhere from two to four events; however, there was a total of 23 events at the competition ranging from earth science to thermodynamics. Each event requires participants to answer complex questions, and some events even have students build things. Even though participants are scored individually, each team member’s scores are added together to determine the team’s overall score. The team with the lowest score is declared the winner of the competition.

THHS placed 12th at this competition. President of the SciOly team and senior Annie Chu commented, “I’m very content with our finish! We did really well considering we lost a lot of powerhouse seniors last year, and we for sure had a lot more fun.” Sophomore Esther Chai, who competed in microbe mission and anatomy and physiology, reflected, “I really loved spending time with the team and just studying and taking tests, and stressing out together. As the competition went on, we were all frightened but we did our best and that’s the most important thing!” Junior Christopher Thomas, who participated in Fermi, Astronomy, and Anatomy and Physiology, remarked, “If there’s one thing I learned from my teammates and the SciOly board, not everything is about a medal. Even though I did not place, I grew closer to the team and I became even more motivated to do better next year. Despite my setbacks, I made some of the best friends and built some of the closest relationships!”

Students studied for many hours in preparation for the competition. Sarah Oberlander, advisor of the Science Olympiad team and Coordinator of Student Activities, said, “The Science Olympiad team has been preparing and practicing for this competition for months. They sacrificed sleep in order to study and build devices, and we are very proud of them for their dedication.”

Annie exclaimed, “Everyone on the team is really fun to be around and being able to spend my last state competition with them really was a blessing.”

Spirit Coordinator for the Science Olympiad team, junior Michelle Lee, expressed, “This is a bittersweet moment. The end of states means the end of this year’s SciOly season, but it’s never too early to start studying for next year!”