Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

State finals of Science Olympiad to be held April 29 on campus

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The state finals of the Illinois Science Olympiad will be held April 29 at the University of Illinois. The event, which begins at 9 a.m., is part of a national competition in which middle and high school students compete in 24 events involving science concepts and engineering skills. The public is invited to attend.

“Approximately 1,100 of the top technical students from around the state are expected to participate in the event,” said Howard Guenther, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “The day will be filled with academic competition, spiced with the spirit of an athletic event,” said Guenther, who is university liaison and site coordinator for the Olympiad.

Area schools that qualified for the competition are Bloomington High School; Tuscola High School; St. Matthew School, Champaign; Edison Middle School, Champaign; and Urbana Middle School.

The competition covers a diverse assortment of disciplines with events such as designing and building a rocket from a two-liter bottle to be launched with compressed air and judged by the time aloft, and designing and building a device to transport an egg eight to 12 meters as quickly as possible in a straight line. Other events include cell biology, water quality and crime science.

“This should be a fun day for everyone involved – students, parents, teachers and friends,” Guenther said. “Some schools are even bringing cheerleaders and pep bands.”

Most of the tournament competition will take place on the Quad or in nearby buildings. A schedule of activities will be available in 161 Noyes Lab, 505 S. Mathews Ave., Urbana. An awards ceremony will be held at 5 p.m. in Foellinger Auditorium, 709 S. Matthews Ave., Urbana.

Read Next

Life sciences Photo of Michael Ward standing in tall grass on a riverbank.

How are migrating wild birds affected by H5N1 infection in the U.S.?

Each spring, roughly 3.5 billion wild birds migrate from their warm winter havens to their breeding grounds across North America, eating insects, distributing plant seeds and providing a variety of other ecosystem services to stopping sites along the way. Some also carry diseases like avian influenza, a worry for agricultural, environmental and public health authorities. […]

Announcements Marcelo Garcia, professor of civil and environmental engineering at The Grainger College of Engineering.

Illinois faculty member elected to National Academy of Engineering

Champaign, Ill. — Marcelo Garcia, a professor of civil and environmental engineering in The Grainger College of Engineering, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Social sciences Male and female student embracing on the quad with flowering redbud tree and the ACES library in the background. Photo by Michelle Hassel

Dating is not broken, but the trajectories of relationships have changed

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — According to some popular culture writers and online posts by discouraged singles lamenting their inability to find romantic partners, dating is “broken,” fractured by the social isolation created by technology, pandemic lockdowns and potential partners’ unrealistic expectations. Yet two studies of college students conducted a decade apart found that their ideas about […]

Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

507 E. Green St
MC-426
Champaign, IL 61820

Email: stratcom@illinois.edu

Phone (217) 333-5010