By Kathryn Gentile
Hometown Weekly Correspondent
Dover-Sherborn High School is the host to a new group of up and coming champions, their Science Olympiad team. This team of about 30-35 active students participates in STEM competitions throughout the state. At these competitions, teams of two or four students are given a task relating to one of many fields of science. They may be asked to build an engineering model, take a biology test, code a program, or conduct a chemistry lab. The teams compete against those from other schools and are awarded points based on their performance that are tallied at the end to find a winner. This year, DSHS’s Science Olympiad team competed in tournaments at UMass Amherst and Harvard to prepare for States, a tournament that welcomed nearly 70 teams this year. DSHS took home seventh place at States this year, the best they’ve ever done, and they’re only getting better.
When DSHS’s Science Olympiad team was founded 6 years ago, they and Science Olympiad in general were much smaller than they are now. As the team has grown, so has the popularity of Science Olympiad state-wide, leading to the massive number of teams seen at their competitions this year. This has made the competition landscape more difficult for a team like DSHS, which is much smaller than many of their rivals. But this has far from put them down. In the team’s first year, they placed 28th at States, and they have climbed the rankings every year since.
DSHS’s team is overseen by two faculty advisors, Wendy Rush and Nicki Graziano. Wendy Rush has been involved with the team for four years and was a major part of their competition trip this year. Alongside her are the team’s captains, Charlie Bunn, who has been a captain for three years, Ben Juo, a captain for one year, and Seiji Ting, another captain for one year. All three of the captains have been members of the team for their entire high school career and are proud to have seen the team through their improvements. “Things are changing all the time”, the captains said about the team. But their goal is consistency in how they prepare for each event and competition, so that they can give their members the best chance for success.
And what success they’ve had! Alongside their impressive placement at States this year, the team placed third at the UMass Amherst invitational, bringing home a trophy for the first time. The team has no plans of stopping soon. While the team is losing their current captains, they have been training another member, Ethan Filip, in a junior captain role this year to continue their efforts. The team is losing 15 seniors at the end of this year, but they have high hopes that their success will continue. The team wants to build a culture where “studying builds them up” and where students can represent DSHS’s academic side. Rush drew attention to the fact that DSHS’s admin has been very supportive of them for that exact reason. Science Olympiad is a very “unique” club and thus offers new opportunities for the students and school to showcase their variety of talents.
The club is equally important to the students that participate in it as it is to the school. As time has gone on, the students have cultivated an uplifting and collaborative environment. The collaboration and friendship that they have found with their teammates is one of the things that the club is most proud of and one of the things they hope to continue to foster for new members. They also hope that they can expand the scientific and academic horizons of DSHS students. Captain Charlie Bunn discussed the way that Science Olympiad helped him find new scientific interests. Before he joined the team, he didn’t have much interest in engineering, but for a competition he was put on an event where he had to build a flying machine or “helicopter” powered by a rubber band. Participating in this event opened Charlie’s eyes to the field of engineering and sparked a new interest. “Each event lets you test the waters, helps you find new interests,” said member Kaden Long. While bringing home the trophies will always be fun, this is the team’s true goal: expanding their scientific horizons and bringing their love of STEM to new people and places.
