Georgia Science Olympiad

C (HIGH SCHOOL) ONLY EVENTS

This list of events includes some events that are used in 2011 as well as events that have been used in the past. Many of the "resting events" will reappear in the same or modified form in the future.

Astronomy: Students are shown a variety of images from deep space and then asked questions about these objects. Some of questions may deal with stellar evolution, types of galaxies, etc. The images are often projected images.

Cell Biology: Students are asked a number of questions about the molecular aspects of cell biology: identification of molecules based on their structure, cellular organelles/structures, and their function, enzymes, enzyme inhibition, energy production etc. Many questions may be related to graphs or determining sizes of objects based on the scale from a micrograph. Often run as stations.

*Chemistry Lab: Proper safety equipment and attire required to participate. The topic of the event varies from year to year. In 2010, the emphasis is on aqueous solutions and kinetics. Students will be expected to perform a number of lab procedures, make measurements and predictions that deal with concentrations of various solutions and also various reaction rates. Many sites will probably use probes.

*Egg-o-naut: A variation of a bottle rocket event. Prior to competition, students will build a bottle rocket from a 2 L soft drink bottle. The bottle will be filled with water and then pressurized. This particular rocket will also be carrying an uncooked egg. The intent of the event is to create a rocket that will stay aloft for the longest time and land with the egg intact.

Environmental Chemistry : A lab based event. Proper safety equipment and attire required to participate . Students will perform a number of lab tests and answer questions relating to soil chemistry such as determining soil pH, composition of various NPK fertilizers, etc. Expect students to have to make various calculations and probably to see some equipment they have never seen or used. Information about such equipment is supposed to be provided. Requires students to spend much time learning how to perform various procedures. High school students can expect to see some mass spectroscopy images and to answer questions about the presence/absence of a particular pesticide. Emphasis is on soil chemistry in 2010.

It's about Time: Prior to the competition, students will build a device that is capable of determining time to with in 0.1 sec. During the event, students will test their device against 5 times that are all less than 5 minutes. The times to be determined will not be known until the day of the competition. In addition, the students will be given a written test with questions about methods of determining time

*Mission Possible: Prior to the competition, the participants will design, build, test and document a "Rube Goldberg®-like Device" that completes a required final task using a series of consecutive tasks. Each step in the process must involve and energy transfer such as light is used to activate a pulley, etc., to receive any points at all device must accomplish the specified beginning and ending tasks.The types of energy transfers are specified, but they need not be completed in the order listed. Initial step involves dropping a golf ball on a mousetrap and final step must involve raising a flag. Penalties are given for touching the device to reset a task. In many ways, the development of simple transfers that work repeatedly is the best approach.

*Mousetrap, out and back: the high school vehicle event in 2010. The vehicle, powered only by one mousetrap, must travel a certain distance and then return to the starting line.

Picture This: Students have a collection of science words. Team members alternate drawing a picture of the word or term; other team member tries to determine the word based on the picture. For example, a drawing of:

might be drawn to represent the word cloud. Scoring is based on number of correct words and also time.

*Physics Lab: An event in which the content area changes yearly.Students will answer questions about alternate energy sources and build a wind collector. The efficiency of the wind collector will be determined by the voltage increase The device will be tested using two speeds of a variable fan. Look for rule clarifications on this event before the competition. Many sites may run this event as stations. In some places, the event may be run as stations.

*Remote Sensing: Students will be shown a number of satellite images of earth and asked questions about the images. They may be asked to interpret geological features, calculate distances between these features, determine the scale used in the image, or provide the longitude/latitude of a location. In 2010 the emphasis will be the effects of global warming on the Boreal Forest.

Technical Problem Solving: Students will be asked to collect and interpret data using various types of equipment that may be found in a high school lab. In many cases, one can expect to be using a probe. This event may cover various areas of science, but students should come with proper safety material and attire as if this event were purely a chemical event.