The win this

year was especially a triumph for the team since most members were battling

the flu virus the week of the Olympiad. Incredibly, the team placed almost

100 points ahead of second place Parrott Academy from North Carolina and

third place Thomas Jefferson Middle School from Indiana.

Two other Fayette

schools also participated in the national contest. McIntosh High School

ranked sixth, and Rising Starr Middle ranked 13th. The only other school

from Georgia to make the national tournament, Columbus High School, placed

45th.

Getting selected

to participate in the national competition is no easy feat. First, teams

must place in the top four at the regional level to advance to the state

contest. In order to get to the national level, teams must place either

first or second in state competition. Booth was the state's second place

winner, which secured the school its 10th consecutive trip to national

competition.

Approximately

2,500 middle and high school students competed in the 2001 National Science

Olympiad May 18-19 in Colorado.

Booth's medal

winners in team events were Kevin Bails and Bryan Odakura, first in rocks

and minerals; Christine Hedge, Shirley Li and Whitney Baker, first in

experimental design; and Steven Perry and Rahul Basu, second in astronomy.

Steven Perry

and Andrew Wedemeyer, second in the Wright stuff; Karen Ketsche and Michael

Massengal, third in road scholar; Steve Piasta and Alyssa Anderson, fifth

in orienteering; and Steve Piasta and Bryan Odakura, fifth in bottle rockets.

Science Olympiad

is an Olympic-style competition that was created in 1983 as an alternative

to traditional science teaching methods, science fairs and single-discipline

academic tournaments. Instead of memorization and textbooks, students

engage in hands-on discovery of cross-curriculum theories and principles.

Relying on

teamwork, discipline, commitment, and determination, students experience

achievement under real-world rigorous academic interscholastic individual

and team events in biology, chemistry, earth science, physics, computer

science, and engineering. Currently, the Science Olympiad involves participants

from nearly all of the 50 states and more than 12,000 K-12 schools.