If the National

Science Olympiad gives out championship rings,

then Mary Wilde is running out of fingers.

Her Booth Middle

School team won its fifth straight title over the

weekend, beating out squads from across North

America at the annual event on the campus of

Eastern Washington University in Cheney.

Rising Starr Middle

School, just south of Peachtree City, took sixth

place in the nation in the middle school science

competition.

Troy High School in

Fullerton, Calif., picked up top honors in the

high school category. Peachtree City's McIntosh

High School took top spots in two contests and

placed second in another.

A total of 54

middle schools and 54 high schools competed in

the event, with the top six finishers in each

event receiving Olympic-style medals. Plaques are

awarded to the top 10 overall winners in both

divisions.

Wilde, who has

coached the Booth team for 14 years, reported

that this year's group achieved an unheard-of

feat - a top-10 finish in all 23 events.

"We averaged

30 points in each event," she said.

"There are usually some events we fall out

of. This was the most amazing team performance

I've ever seen."

Events with names

like "science crime busters" and the

trajectory contest are geared to demonstrate

science knowledge and problem-solving skills as

well as the ability to work as a team.

The Booth

contingent left Georgia May 15 and spent nearly a

week out west, arriving home late Sunday night.

The actual competition was Friday and Saturday.

A combination of

academic and construction physics events were

conducted, Wilde said, meaning that some students

prepared projects in advance and carried them to

the event while others came ready to take tests

at the competition site.

Only 15 students

actually compete on each team, but Booth took 32

students to Washington for this event. Interest

in the Science Olympiad is increasing every year

on the Booth campus because of its continued

dominance, and Wilde acknowledged that she is

having an increasingly difficult time selecting

her team because of that.

She will begin

preparing for next year in a few weeks by

attending a camp during the summer. The students

will start getting ready in September. "It's

a year-round activity," she said.

Booth principal Lyn

Wenzel praised Wilde's leadership. "She is

the one behind it all. She's such a hard

worker," said Wenzel. "She organizes

and gets coaches for each event, and that's why

they're strong in each event, and do so well

overall."

The National

Science Olympiad is an international nonprofit

organization devoted to increasing and sustaining

student interest in science. It provides

recognition for outstanding achievement in

science education through classroom activities,

research, training workshops and local, state and

national competitions.

EWU is situated on

a 300-acre campus in Cheney, a community of 8,300

residents 17 miles southwest of Spokane,

Washington's second largest city.

Photos and results

from the Olympiad are available online at www.thecitizennews.com .

Top

10 middle schools

in

science in the nation

1.

J.C. Booth Middle School - Peachtree City,

Ga.

2.

Thomas Jefferson Middle School - Valparaiso,

Ind.

3.

Arendell Parrot Academy - Kinston, N.C.

4.

Malow Junior High School - Shelby Township,

Mich.

5.

New Mark Middle School - Kansas City, Mo.

6.

Rising Starr Middle School - Fayetteville,

Ga.

7.

South Middle School - Arlington Heights,

Ill.

8.

Piqua Junior High School - Piqua, Ohio

9.

Arthur W. Coolidge Middle School - Reading,

Mass.

10.

Magsig Middle School - Centerville, Ohio

Individual

events -

Middle

schools

Battery Buggy

1. St. Francis

Xavier - Phoenix, Ariz.

2. Arthur W.

Coolidge Middle School - Reading, Mass.

3. Rising Starr

Middle School - Fayetteville, Ga.

(Team will design

and build a battery-powered vehicle to traverse a

course.)

Experimental Design

1. Arthur W.

Coolidge Middle School - Reading, Mass.

2. Magsig Middle

School - Centerville, Ohio

3. Booth Middle

School - Peachtree City, Ga.

(Given a set of

unknown objects, teams will design and conduct an

experiment.)

Reach for the Stars

1. Henry B. duPont

Middle School - Hockessin, Del.

2. Booth Middle

School - Peachtree City, Ga.

3. Rising Starr

Middle School - Fayetteville, Ga.

(Teams will

identify constellations and solve astronomy

problems.)

Water Strider

1. Malow Junior

High School - Shelby Township, Mich.

2. Kane Area Middle

School - Kane, Penn.

3. Booth Middle

School - Peachtree City, Ga.

(Students will

design and build a device, using only the

materials specified, that will travel the length

of a water-filled trough, propelled solely by the

carbon-dioxide produced from the chemical

reaction between sodium bicarbonate and acetic

acid.)

The Wright Stuff

1. Bearden Middle

School - Knoxville, Tenn.

2. Booth Middle

School - Peachtree City, Ga.

3. Rising Starr

Middle School - Fayetteville, Ga.

(Students will

design and build a propeller propelled

aerodynamic device for greatest time aloft.)

Individual

events -

High

schools

Bottle

Rockets

1.

McIntosh High School - Peachtree City, Ga.

2.

Albuquerque Academy - Albuquerque, N.M.

3.

Prairie High School - Brush Prairie, Wash.

(Participants

will design, construct and test one or two

rockets made from one 2-liter and one 1-liter

plastic pop bottle which will remain aloft for a

maximum period of time.)

Dynamic

Planet

1.

duPont Manual High School - Louisville, Ken.

2.

McIntosh High School - Peachtree City, Ga.

3.

Oak Park High School - Kansas City, Mo.

(Teams

will work at stations that display a variety of

earth science materials and related earth science

questions.)

The

Wright Stuff

1.

McIntosh High School - Peachtree City, Ga.

2.

Chamblee High School - Dunwoody, Ga.

3.

West High School - Knoxville, Tenn.

(Students will

design and build a propeller propelled

aerodynamic device for greatest time aloft.)

<!--

-----------