Regional Champions Eclipsed in State Science Competition
While most Castro Valley students were relaxing during spring break, 45 students from Canyon, Creekside, and CVHS spent the week studying hard in preparation for the NorCal State Science Olympiad tournament last Saturday (April 6th) at CSUEB. They pitted their knowledge and lab skills in various STEM subjects ranging from Anatomy to Geologic Mapping to Robot Tour against the best schools in Northern California.
Defending State champion CVHS beat rival Mountain View by 1 point to take home the 2nd place trophy. They earned medals in 20 out of 24 events, including gold medals in Air Trajectory, Codebusters, Fossils, and Agricultural Science. However, it was not enough to defeat the new state champions from Monta Vista High School (Cupertino), who will represent our state at Nationals. These 3 schools have been battling it out all season long at various invitationals and overall scores were neck-and-neck during the awards ceremony. “With 3 teams in NorCal capable of being top 10 nationally, we probably have the toughest competition in the country,” said junior Sean Chen.
The cohort of seniors on the team was special; as 7th graders in 2019, they fueled the Creekside team to the State competition and the CVHS team to Nationals for the first time ever. Fortunately, they inspired a “younger generation” that will backfill with strength for years to come.
That new generation is currently in the middle school division. To their credit, Creekside finished in 6th place overall, with 20 top-10 finishes and medals in Air Trajectory, Crime Busters, Fossils, Microbe Mission, Optics, Tower, Engineering CAD, Flight, Codebusters, Ecology, and Agricultural Science. Canyon took 9th place overall, with 13 top-10 finishes and medals in Tower, Air Trajectory, Disease Detectives, Fossils, Wheeled Vehicle, and Reach for the Stars.
Castro Valley Science celebrates its 11th year of fostering STEM activities in Castro Valley. For more information or to provide support, please go to: CVscience.us.
