On Saturday, classrooms and corridors across campus were filled with thousands of younger students looking to learn in the Grand Valley State University community during the regional Science Olympiad.

Program Coordinator Margo Dill said the event was presented by GVSU’s Regional Math and Science Center (RSMC), which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary.

“Seventy-three middle and high school teams from Kent and Ottawa counties came together for this regional Science Olympiad competition,” Dill said. “The tournament went extremely well – with the exception of cold temperatures causing the cancellation of the outdoor Bottle Rockets event with safety concerns about ice formation in the unseasonably frigid conditions.”

The school students showed off their knowledge in many different academic fields, including chemistry, physics, technology and biology in an attempt to qualify for the state tournament on May 2.

For the 23 different events, students participated in activities such as constructing bridges, astro-physics, road scholar, rocket launching, robot building and crime solving. To promote a scientific spirit within the competition, participants competed in teams and trained for months up until the events.

GVSU freshman Jackie Kamp participated in Science Olympiad tournaments throughout middle school and high school and said that the competitions were a deciding factor in her decision to come to GVSU.

“Coming to GVSU to compete with my school for a place in the state competition really showed me what GVSU was like as a college,” she said. “By the time I enrolled, I felt like I already knew the school. The fact that GVSU held the Science Olympiad events was definitely a factor that helped me decide where I wanted to go to college and what I wanted to study.”

Kamp, who hopes to one day earn a place in GVSU’s competitive PA program, returns to the Science Olympiad tournaments every year to tutor students from her high school in activities such as bridge building and the road scholar event.

“Bridge building is a fascinating subject,” she said. “This year, students had to build a bridge from balsa wood that would hold up to 15 kg, but weigh as little as possible. The road scholar event is also interesting – students learn to create all sorts of different road maps and point out latitude and longitude.”

Gary Blok, Plymouth Christian School’s head science coach, has been at many Science Olympiads over the years and recently watched his students take first place in the 2013 Olympiad junior high competition.

“Giving these students the opportunity to compete in a tournament like this is huge,” he said. “The experiments are much more in-depth than they could ever be in the classroom, and you get to see the kids work so hard for their places. There are kids who are working hours and nights, coming in on a Saturday to get more information for their projects.”

The tournaments have a lasting effect on his participating students, Blok said.

“We see kids come back telling us, ‘I’m where I am today and am motivated to do what I am doing because of Science Olympiad,’” he said. “Whether it be engineering, medicine or another discipline, these kids find out what suits them through this competition.”

Blok agreed that the team exercises helped to promote teamwork among his students and mentioned that the effect of Science Olympiad can be different at various schools.

“The competition run at GVSU is very organized,” he said. “The university does a fantastic job of facilitating students, teachers and parents while maintaining a great learning environment. Even the bigger schools that hold the state competitions are very disorganized in comparison.”

The team building at Plymouth Christian School appeared to pay off, as both of the school teams proceeded to qualify for state. The senior team placed fifth out of six teams to qualify and the junior team placed seventh out of 11 teams to qualify.

The 2015 winners of the Region 12 tournament were announced at the end of the day: Grand Haven for senior high and Lakeshore Middle School for junior high.

“We could not have achieved this level of tournament success without the generous support of Grand Valley faculty, students and staff,” Dill said. “We would like to thank President Thomas Haas; Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Fred Antczak; Representatives Chris Afendoulis, Roger Victory and Rob VerHeulen and Ottawa County Commissioner Greg DeJong for sharing their time with us as well.”