ORONO — From flying rubber band powered helicopters to decoding encrypted messages, the STEM skills of more than 200 middle and high school students will be tested during the Maine Science Olympiad on Saturday, April 12 at the University of Maine.
Fifteen teams from public, private and home schools across the state will compete in 23 events in subjects including paleontology, GIS, anatomy, robotics and meteorology. The top high school and middle school teams will move on to the 2025 Science Olympiad National Tournament at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln May 23-24.
Competitions, ranging from gameshow style Q&A’s like “Reach for the Stars,” investigative challenges like “Crime Busters” and contests with homemade devices like “Robot Tour,” will be held at various locations on campus. Opening remarks will be delivered by Giovanna Guidoboni, dean of the Maine College of Engineering and Computing at 8:15 a.m. in Neville Hall.
The olympiad will culminate with an awards ceremony at 4:30 p.m. in Neville Hall, the awards for which will be presented by UMaine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy. Tours of the Versant Power Astronomy Center, the Advanced Structures and Composites Center and the Innovative Media Research and Commercialization Center will also be available during the event for the competitors.
“The Science Olympiad has been a wonderful opportunity for our students to really explore more content-specific fields that may not be offered at the high school,” said Hermon High School science teacher Jessica Fusco, who is co-advising the school’s science olympiad team with fellow teacher Betsy Trenckmann. “This year, we have a couple students excited about forensics and optics — both topics that are rarely covered at the high school. They’ve been preparing for months — working independently and during interventions to really dive into their individual content. They’re looking forward to putting their skills to the test in these hands-on and content based challenges. But beyond the competition itself, they’re simply thrilled to spend the day at the University of Maine campus.”
UMaine’s Frank Dudish and David Strum are co-directors for the olympiad. Dudish, a principal lecturer in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, said throughout each olympiad event, the students’ energy mirrors that of a crowd “at a hockey game or a pep rally.”
“These are students who are already interested in STEM fields. They study and learn everything they can on a given topic,” said Strum, an instructional laboratory and lecture demonstration specialist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy.
To help coordinate this year’s olympiad, Dudish and Strum recruited three dozen faculty and graduate and undergraduate students from MCEC, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the College of Earth, Life, and Health Sciences to run the individual competitions.
“This is an opportunity for me and David to work outside of the physics department with people we usually don’t see. It’s fun working with people across campus and enriching to see that we’re all working toward the same direction,” Dudish said. “Teamwork is key, both for students participating in the competition and for the faculty and staff running it.”
Maine has held a state level tournament since the first national Science Olympiad in the mid-1980s, and it has been held every year since.
Registration and check-in opens at 7:30 a.m. in Neville Hall. For more information, visit the Maine Science Olympiad website or contact Dudish at [email protected].
