Competing for Gold: Taking a Look at Science Olympiad

Science Olympiad has been at Redwood for over 15 years! Science Olympiad is an important part of Redwood’s history, but do we really know much about it? Yes, you could say it’s about Science and competing, but you’ll come to find out that it’s so much more than that!

By: Liliana Madrigal

3rd year Chemistry teacher, Mr. Austin Arruda is the advisor of Science Olympiad. His motivation is: “COVID really impacted [the club] because it kind of stopped. During my first year teaching here, we really didn’t have a Science Olympiad advisor, so students asked me, and I’ve been the advisor pretty much since we came back.” 

Interestingly, in college, Mr. Arruda majored in chemistry. His curiosity inspired him to take a career in science: “I’ve always been the type of student that was always asking extra questions, like ‘why this, why that.’ I feel like every teacher can relate where they want their students to go and want them to ask those types of questions, but also do their own little research.” 

Science Olympiad gets to explore and create all kinds of things! Mr. Arruda compares it to FBLA. Mr. Arruda says, “It’s basically a collection of about 20 events. For example, there’s like a forensics event, there’s a chem lab, there’s ecology, there’s disease detectives, there’s build events.”

His favorite part is “seeing kids become leaders.” 

Mr. Arruda clarifies that students really have love for science in order to efficiently compete against other students and win in their category. He says, “It’s basically a test of your knowledge in certain categories of science. They take a test and the team who does the best gets to win that event.”

He recommends students who have a knack for science to join: “I think if you have any enjoyment of learning more, students should join because it really pushes you to have to learn more about the event you’re in. You can’t just take what you know and just expect to do well, you have to do a little bit of extra research.” 

Yong Lee, ‘26, is the president and wants to pursue a career in either aerospace or mechanical engineering. He enjoys his time spent in competing: “I wanted a place where I could explore scientific topics in a hands-on way. There is a lot of freedom involved, so these kinds of events can be really fun and are a chance to express individual creativity.” 

Fascinatingly, Lee was compelled by science since he was young. He says, “Engineering has actually been my dream job since I was in elementary school. Science and math have always been my favorite subjects. My inspiration was drawn from playing with Lego or the various projects my dad built, such as a go-kart.” 

Janna Asunto, ‘27, is a member of Science Olympiad. She is also the treasurer of the club. She was inspired to join from taking Chemistry her freshman year. She says, “I really feel like science is such an interesting topic. I really like competing with my friends and I do think it is really fun when you have a group of people to compete with and spend time with, which Science Olympiad provides.” 

Science Olympiad is a club that brings together the community. You get to compete with your friends and have fun doing it. 

Mikeyla Alisna, ‘27, is one of the Directors for Labs and Written Events. She’s been in Science Olympiad since her eighth grade year. She says her family is part of the reason why she’s interested in science, as most of her family have careers in the medical field. 

Alisna says, “I really like the community because the community’s really kind to each other and we all get along really well.” 

Science Olympiad won sixteenth place out of twenty four schools in their State Competition. But, Mr. Arruda positively says, “In regionals, which is against all of the Central Valley, we placed second and qualified for state. We beat all the Visalia schools, so number one in the Valley!”

Overall, Science Olympiad helps bring aspiring students intrigued by science to follow their passion by testing their knowledge and encouraging them to delve deeper. By competing and building a community, Science Olympiad is a “pursuit of knowledge kind of thing,” says Mr. Arruda.

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