ranklin Regional FRANKLIN REGIONAL NEWS
FRMS / FRSH Science Olympiad Teams Earn Numerous Medals
The Franklin Regional Middle School Science Olympiad team recently completed their 2017 season with a very impressive showing at the state tournament. Pennsylvania has historically been a very competitive Science Olympiad state ever since the competition was first introduced in 1985 and that trend continued this year. Currently, more than 5,600 students from 283 schools participate in the Pennsylvania Science Olympiad.
After taking Second Place at the PA Southwestern regional tournament, the Franklin Regional Middle School Science Olympiad team traveled to Juniata College on April 29, 2017, to compete in the team’ s 17th consecutive state Science Olympiad tournament. Competing with the top 36 middle school teams in the
BACK ROW: Sam Dauby, Ashley Li, Quincy Bayer, state, the Franklin Regional team emerged with an overall Fifth Place finish, Lily Wang, Sathwik Garimella, Adam Schwab. narrowly missing the bid to the national competition.
MIDDLE ROW: Sarah Dabre, Caitlin Van Alen, Meghna Iyengar, Bhav Jain.
The Science Olympiad competition is a series of events that test scientific FRONT ROW: Claire Pamerleau, Meg Anderson, knowledge. Various methods are used to test the students’ scientific knowledge
Daeil Bae, Vineet Madduru including written tests, problem-solving activities, and STEM centered building events. The students have been working since October to prepare for the 23 science-oriented events.
The team is coached by FRMS science teachers Joe Racchini and Jennifer Joyce, and supported with many hours of parent volunteer mentoring. The team members have plans to continue to work hard throughout the upcoming year and are now setting their sights on next year’ s competition. They are hopeful that with continued hard work and dedication, next year will be the year of the school’ s first appearance at the Science Olympiad national tournament.
To earn the team’ s overall Fifth Place finish, team members took individual medals in the following events: 2nd Place Medals: Meteorology – Max Wang and Evan Zhou 3rd Place Medals: Ecology – Tina Henninger and Elena Swecker; Code Busters( Trial Event) – Abhinav Komanduri, Praneel Varshney, and Prerit Yadav 4th Place Medals: Dynamic Planet – Nathan Henry and Max Wang; Microbe Mission – Nathan Henry and Amber Li; Bag of Bones( Trial Event) – Atharva Mayekar and Prerit Yadav; We’ ve got your Number( Trial Event) – Abhinav Komanduri and Praneel Varshney 6th Place Medals: Disease Detective – Urvish Jain and Elena Swecker; Wind Power – Anup Nadesan and Shrey Ramesh
Digital Ambassadors Making an Impact in FR Elementary Schools
The 4th grade students at Heritage and Newlonsburg Elementary Schools participated in the 10th annual Science Olympiad. This year, the decade-long tradition was revolutionized by the infusion of technology. Due to the integration of the position of the Digital Ambassadors through Discovery Education at Franklin Regional, four teachers, Brett Bielewicz, Katie Proviano, Renee Ryan, and Megan Melucci, were able to utilize their Google Chromebooks to enhance multiple Olympiad Stations elevating them to Next Generation Science Standards incorporating 21st Century Skills. In addition, teachers Lindsey Conley, Tracy Martin, Jason Miller, and Nancy Teper assisted in ensuring the direct delivery of the enhancements throughout the day as well as the teambuilding day. All students were fully included and worked collaboratively to think critically, problem solve, and apply their knowledge to 10 highly sophisticated stations. Team Maroon won overall First Place for the 2017 Science Olympiad.
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The FRSH team also did well with Bhav Jain bringing home a Fourth Place medal in Anatomy. The FRSH team was coached by teachers Mark Wolfgang and Amy Smith.
Towers Event- Max and Manali in action. They were trying to build the lightest tower within the construction parameters that could hold 15kg of sand.