Nearly 700 elementary school students will crowd the Lake Michigan College Mendel Center this Friday for the Berrien RESA 2024 Annual Elementary Science Olympiad.
RESA’s Tonya Snyder tells us 17 schools in Berrien County are sending teams to engage in scientific experiments.
“Just lots of different kinds of engineering, science activities to get our elementary Berrien County students all fired up about science,” Snyder said.
Snyder says the activities are chosen by the schools and are intended to be fun. They could be anything from calculating the ratio of chocolate chips to batter in some cookies to demonstrating a catapult. It’s all to encourage young scientists.
“Science is one of those things, it’s all around us. And really doing many of these activities makes it accessible. It reminds them they all are scientists.”
Each team will have about 30 students, and the event is non-competitive. The Science Olympiad will run from 10 a.m. to 12:50 p.m. with parents and school staff also on hand.
The elementary Science Olympiad event is a noncompetitive day that allows Berrien County elementary students to learn about science through hands-on activities and experiments. This year, 17 elementary schools will participate. They include:
Ballard Elementary, Niles
Brandywine Elementary
Bridgman Elementary
Brown Elementary, St. Joseph
Coloma Intermediate School
E.P. Clarke Elementary, St. Joseph
Howard-Ellis Elementary, Niles
Lincoln Elementary – St. Joseph
Lybrook Elementary, Eau Claire
Martin Luther King, Jr. – Benton Harbor
New Buffalo Elementary
Niles Adventist School
Sylvester Elementary, Berrien Springs
River Valley Elementary
Riverside School
Trinity Lutheran
Watervliet North
