Westside students place first at Science Olympiad regional
Senior Terry Edwards cleans a buret in the Honors Chemistry Lab at Westside. Edwards placed first in the chemistry lab competition at the Science Olympiad. Photo by Jakob Phillips
Saturday, Feb. 22 the Westside Science Club participated in a regional Science Olympiad competition. One team, made up of seniors Terry Edwards and Liam O’Riordan, took first place in its competition, chemistry lab.
Edwards, who is currently in AP Chemistry, and O’Riordan, who took AP Chemistry last year, missed only one question during a competition that had a lab portion, where students had to identify two unknown solids using three other chemicals, and a part with two pages of questions about equilibrium reactions.
“I was actually completely surprised [that we won],” Edwards said. “I thought … everyone probably did around that well, and maybe we missed a couple of questions we thought we didn’t, but I’m happy with how we did. [I’m] proud of Liam.”
The overall competition included 20 different events, and at the end of the competition came an awards ceremony. Westside had one other group place. Sophomores Nicholas and Peter Pellett placed third in the astronomy competition.
The next competition will be the state Science Olympiad. Science instructor Judy Stucky told Edwards and O’Riordan that she wanted them to go to that competition.
“I think we’ll probably do fine [at state],” Edwards said. “I’m sure we’ll probably place. I don’t know if we’ll get first. It depends on how hard the competition is.”
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