On Saturday, February 26, the Science Olympiad team beat the competition to become region champions. The competition, consisting of 23 events, was held at Southern Polytechnic and State University. Chamblee was one of the 24 schools that competed. 

Chamblee sent 15 of its seasoned science students to the competition. All of them performed well, with nearly every student earning awards.

“The team was wonderful,” said team sponsor Pamela Gilbert-Smith, “I can’t ask for more from them. They want to compete, and they want to win.”

The team competed in events of all kinds. Many of the events were lab-based, some were written tests, and a few dealt with building structures, robots, and even rubber band-powered planes.

Medals and trophies were handed out at an awards ceremony that afternoon.

Chamblee won a total of 17 medals, taking five first place, four second place, three third place, and five fourth place.

The team won a total of 82 points, tying Wheeler Magnet School. In Science Olympiad competitions, the number of gold medals each team has is used to break the tie. Chamblee had five gold medals to Wheeler’s four.

“It was a nail-biter to the end,” said Gilbert-Smith, “We had very stiff competition.”

Team member Wanzhe Zhu, who received two second-place medals in the events Cell Biology and Designer Genes, and one fourth-place medal in the subject of Practical Data Gathering, said,” It was fun. We won first place, so it was good.”

The top four teams were invited to the State Tournament in March at Emory University.

The top teams were Chamblee, Wheeler, Westminster, and North Gwinett.

“I feel pretty good about going to Emory,” said Gilbert-Smith, “but it’s the same weekend as the  presidential scholars weekend at most colleges, so we’re going to lose some of our strongest seniors, but we have some excellent underclassmen stepping up.”

Students interested in competing next year should see Gilbert-Smith for registration forms and event information.