Students flex their muscles at STEM Olympics

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Students from across Norfolk competed in the inaugural STEM Olympics at Delhi District Secondary School on June 4.

“Back when I was a student in Delhi in 1994 I competed in what was called the Science Olympics,” said Ryan Robyn, the math and computer sciences department head at Delhi. “It’s been my goal to get this back for about 10 years now.”

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All high schools across Norfolk were invited to send participants. Simcoe Composite School, Valley Heights Secondary School, and DDSS all had students attend the event. The students came in groups of four, each group had to have at least one Grade 9 and one Grade 10 student.

Delhi teams took home first and second place, and Valley took third.

The first-place team included Aiden Wesseling, Riley Brackenbury, Brooke Husted, and Ayman Zaher. The second-place team from DDSS was Josh Watt, Addison Bartik, Kenzie Plouffe, and Naomi Unger. The third-place team from VHSS was Magwyer Cowan, Shawn Knelsen, Jaime VanOoteghem, and Daphne Huyge.

The competition is a series of math and science challenges based on the Grade 9 and 10 curriculum. There were three challenges in each subject that the students needed to complete as a group in the 20 minutes allotted to the challenge. The first three were done in the morning, a barbecue lunch was held for the contestants, and then the final three were completed in the afternoon.

“They are more advanced problems, so the students that we have here are definitely testing their academic skills,” said Robyn.

Delhi had three teams, Valley sent two, and Simcoe sent one, for a total of 24 students competing.

A trophy and medals were created for first, second, and third place.