Released November 25, 2008
BOZEMAN, Mont. - When the Science Olympiad team from Big Timber walked into the ballrooms at Montana State University on Tuesday morning, other teams noticed.
Part of the attention could have been thanks to Big Timber's matching windbreakers and polo shirts; few teams that compete in the daylong science competition wear uniforms.
More likely, it was Big Timber's reputation that drew stares. In the past 23 years, Big Timber's junior high school team has won the Olympiad 15 times.
"It's a matter of how much work they do," said the team's coach, Rolland Karlin, who has coached every one of Big Timber's teams. "These kids work hard and want to be champions."
Big Timber was one of more than 30 schools that attended the 24th annual Science Olympiad at MSU. The competition featured 15 science-related events for Montana junior high and high school students and drew more than 900 students to MSU.
About 120 students, faculty and staff from departments across campus put on the tournament, which spread across five buildings on campus. The Olympiad is organized by MSU's Math Science Resource Center.
Winners at the state level have the chance to attend the national tournament, which will be held in Augusta, Ga., in May.
Big Timber began preparing for the event early, as they do every year. The school has about 160 students in grades 6-9 who are eligible for the team. Each year, about a third of them compete for spots on the 15-person team. That's spectacular turnout for a science competition, especially for a small school, Karlin said.
Once chosen, the team starts preparing at the end of October, spending at least three nights a week practicing at the school. In addition, team members spend hours at home and on the weekends getting ready for the trip to Bozeman.
The students put a lot of work into the team, but they also get a lot out of it. Karlin estimated that 80 percent of the team members end up with college degrees, many of them in science-related fields like engineering and medicine.
"If I think about the kids who have been on this team the past 23 years, a huge percentage of them are successful now," he said.
The Olympiad is unique, Karlin said, because it allows small schools like Big Timber to compete with teams from much larger schools, an experience team sports don't provide.
"What's really neat is for a small school to come out here and beat a larger school," he said. "There's a lot of pride in that."
But there's pressure too, some of the team's rookie members said. Sixth graders Brent Beley, 11, and Chance Wessel, 12, and seventh graders Jason Cranston and Britt Todd, both 13, all said the Olympiad is a great place to learn about science and math. But they also said those past championships weighed on their minds as they walked into the Strand Union Ballrooms on Tuesday.
"When you walk in, you can see people staring at you," Jason said. "They're gunning for you. You can feel the pressure."
"But a little pressure is good for you," Britt added. "And we can take the pressure."
The competition is friendly, Karlin said, and that's only one aspect of the Olympiad, something he has learned over his decades of coaching teams for the event. Mostly, it's about learning and having fun.
"It's about the broad experience of learning across a range of subjects," he said. "The medals are just gravy."
-30-
http://www.montana.edu/cpa/news/nwview.php?article=6587
Contact: Lisa Daly, (406)-994-7606, dalylisa@montana.edu