GCHS Science Olympiad students place at regional competition

Students in Garden City High School’s Science Olympiad club have been readying themselves since September for the Nassau West Regional Science Olympiad competition. In this student-driven club, students meet once a week to prepare for the competition’s events, such as forensics, anatomy and physiology, building and engineering, earth science and more. While students are provided with materials, they prepare for their chosen category independently, checking-in with club advisers to show their progress.

This year, a total of 42 teams competed at the Nassau West Regional competition. Garden City placed in the top nine of four different events and six students earned medals. In the “Write it, Do it” category, Josephine Yin and Annika Margolies placed third. In this event, one student writes a description of an object and how to build it, then another student attempts to construct the object from that description.

In the Forensics category, Armeen Panthaki and Elizabeth Rosado placed fifth. In the Fermi Questions category, Mannat Jain and Sarah Phinney received eighth place. In this category, teams provide answers to a series of “Fermi Questions” or science-related questions that seek fast, rough estimates of a quantity which is either difficult or impossible to measure directly.

In the Anatomy and Physiology category, Julia Cherchever and Elizabeth Rosado also received eighth place.

Additionally, student Jeffrey Li came in tenth place in the Flight category and students Mannat Jain and Sarah Phinney placed 10th in the Remote Sensing category. In the Remote Sensing category, teams use remote sensing images such as photographic and spectroscopic infor - mation to analyze data and/or make climate models.

Student Julia Cherchever said, “I am so grateful and proud to have had the opportunity to participate in Science Olympiad and learn more in anatomy. I have been preparing since last year and I am so proud to have brought home a medal with Elizabeth in Anatomy and Physiology for my team for this year’s competition.”

Student Josephine Yin added, “We are so excited for placing third in Write it, Do it. Our success exceeded our expectations, and we are so proud of how well we did at this year’s Science Olympiad regional competition. Our hard work paid off!”

The club is led by high school science teachers Tori Flaherty and Charles Hager. Tori Flaherty said, “For the two of us being new advisers of the Science Olympiad club, we’re really proud of how hard our students worked to show a strong science presence within the district and county.”