By Dana Sternthal
Staff Writer
Mira Costa’s Science Olympiad placed 20th out of 28 teams on April 6 at the Southern California State Finals at Canyon High School in Anaheim.
Science Olympiad qualified for State Finals at the Los Angeles County Regional Science Olympiad Tournament over mid-winter break after they placed eighth in the competition. To prepare, the team held extensive study groups everyday over spring break.
“It was difficult, and there were a lot of intelligent people at the competition who train really hard,” junior Michelle Tran said. “It was really fun, and eye opening how much we didn’t know, and how much there is to learn. The other questions at Regionals were kind of easy, and this competition made me think harder and made me remember why I love science.”
Senior Lauren Hagedorn and freshman Anna O’Connor placed the highest on the team, earning fourth place in Dynamic Planet, in which they had to answer short answer problems about glaciers and their relationship with the land, weather patterns, and environment.
“Medalling was extremely exciting, and as my partner and I didn’t medal in regionals, it was rewarding to see that our extensive extra studying had payed off in the end.” O’Connor said. “We got stuck on the last page of the test when we came upon a questions asking about ‘The Snowball Earth Theory’ Never having heard of such a theory, we simply used our knowledge about the Milankovitch Cycle and the impact of Ice Ages to make an educated guess as to what the theory was. After the competition, we looked up the theory and were delighted to find that we had guessed it correctly. It was extremely rewarding to find that we were able to use our prior knowledge about glaciers to answer a problem on something we had no clue about.”
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