St. Mary's Elementary School - Lancaster, NY

St. Mary’s Elementary School Enters NYS Science Olympiad

      Sixteen sixth, seventh and eighth grade students from St. Mary's Elementary School in Lancaster entered the 25th NYS Science Olympiad on Saturday, February 28, 2009 at Southside Academy in Buffalo. It was the first experience for the St. Mary’s students, under the guidance of science teacher, Kyle Canfield.
      St. Mary’s competed with fourteen other private, public, and one other Catholic elementary school teams. The various teams competed in a dozen events, such as Disease Detective, Wright Stuff, Sumo Bots, Science Crime Buster, Trajectory, Scrambler, Road Scholar, and others. Seventh grader, Spenser Hetrick, took the Second Place Medal in the Amphibian and Reptile Event.
Judges and the Buffalo State College student assistants encouraged the entrants upon completion of the events. After St. Mary’s students, Moira Kauderer and Jacob Loecher, competed in the Scrambler Event, the attending judge commented to the students, “Scientists learn from their mistakes. We usually hear about the successful outcomes and not the many, many mistakes along the way.”
     He also complimented the school’s terrific t-shirt design, worn by the St. Mary’s team. The shirt, created by Mr. Canfield, featured the words “Science Rocks” surrounding a graphic of various rocks.
     The 2009 Science Olympiad Team included Anthony Berardi, Samuel Browne, Jacob Concannon, Natalia Dziadosz, David Filion, Spenser Hetrick, Peter Jowdy, Moira Kauderer, Jacob Loecher, Nathan Nasternak, Connor O’Brien, Jacob Sainz, Jillian Senko, Wyatt Watson, Wesley Watson, and Hayley Wnuk.
     New York State Science Olympiad (NYSSO) is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of science education in grades 5-12, increasing male, female and minority interest in science, creating a technologically literate workforce and providing recognition for outstanding achievement in science and technology. These goals are achieved by providing opportunities for teams of students to participate in 22 regional and state Science Olympiad tournaments across New York State. NYSSO also promotes the inclusion of Science Olympiad activities in classroom curricula and provides teacher training at seminars and an annual coaches workshop.