By Caleb Feliz
Redwood High School Team #51 proceeds to the NorCal Science Olympiad State Finals on April 6, having landed 3rd place in Division C for the 2019 Tulare County Regional on March 2nd. Redwood team #51 and #52 took first places for the events Anatomy and Physiology, Astronomy, Designer Genes, Fossils, Geological Mapping, and Mission Possible.
Mrs. Laufer is an adviser for the Olympiad crew and maintained considerable confidence in the success of Redwood at the Regionals, as “Redwood typically does pretty well.”
She further stated her praise for the Redwood teams’ flexibility, being “involved with so many different things, and [the Science Olympiad] can kinda collide with that. But kids still manage to pull it together. I know some kids have to drop off for different reasons too, but what’s cool is the other kids step up and cover those events. This year we again managed to do that and beat out a lot of other teams and still get third place, even missing some key members… But it is a big time commitment… It can become difficult to manage everything, especially on top of the other classes.”
Laufer also mentioned “some of these kids have been doing it for three, four, five years because they started in Middle School too. Valley Oak did really well, and Green Acres did well too… and that’s where a lot of these kids come in from us those programs too, which helps.” But in terms of State, Laufer could only say “it’s kids from around the state, and the kids coming in are especially from the Bay Area, San Francisco and L.A. some of those kids it’s all they do, that’s all their coaches do. They just hammer them. Kids are kinda shocked from the difference in the mentality, but some of our kids will still place very well. If they place first, that would be extremely great because these [competitions] are so competitive. It’s not just memorizing a bunch of facts… but the rest of it you have to usually create something, know something, and just be prepared for any virtually question they ask you. I still see our kids doing well, but a lot of them say State is more about the experience and actually having made it and doing the best they can. It’s also great character building and it’s great experience for the kids and it looks great on a college resume too.”
Hambin Yu, 22’, stated her previous expectation for Redwood’s success, saying “we were probably going to fail because nobody seemed to work on anything and I felt really unorganized at first.” But, for her, the result was quite backwards, stating “it actually went pretty good. I actually won first on one of my events and I placed in all my [other] events, so it was actually pretty good.”
The Reality of Redwood’s stake in the Science Olympiad is an impressive one. It sheds some light on the capabilities of the students who frequent the campus of RHS and the capabilities of those students on a team. It not only gives the school something to be proud of, but it also gives those who dare something to be proud to be a part of.