TA News

This Sunday, April 12th, a small group of Thetford Academy students participated in the Vermont State Science Olympiad. “Founded in 1984, Science Olympiad is the leading team STEM competition in the nation, providing standards-based challenges to 7,000 teams at 450 tournaments in all 50 states.” The events range in type from core knowledge, to lab, to build events across all scientific disciplines. 

This year, for the first time ever, Thetford Academy sent a team of five students: Connor Sloop, Meredith Sloop, Zane Henry, Elijah Renner, and Nick Smallwood. These students did not have much time to prepare; but they showed up with can-do attitudes, resolved to give it a go. The strategy was to participate in as many of the 13 different events as they could, have fun, and learn about what each event entails. The students did not participate in any of the five build events, as this required bringing something that they had designed and built ahead of time. As this was primarily to be a reconnaissance mission, the team started a shared document to record their take-aways and lessons learned.

When the awards ceremony rolled around, half of the team had gone home, because it was a long day and they did not expect to win anything. The teams that TA competed against could have up to 15 people, so some schools had two teams. Against all odds, three students won medals in six different events. Connor Sloop won two bronze medals; Elijah Renner won two bronze medals; and, Nick Smallwood medaled in every event, taking home three bronze and one silver. Overall, Thetford Academy won third place out of eight teams that competed.

It was a victory so unexpected that the team was beside themselves with surprise and elation! The end result is that the students are excited to start prepping for next year in the hopes that they can be competitive for first place. The STEM club’s next task is to debrief about the event and begin the planning process for the coming year, hopefully with increased participation.