User:49ers

=Science Olympiad Information=

I have greatly enjoyed my years in Science Olympiad, and hope to coach in the future. I hope to be able to pass on the same amazing experience that I have had in learning science to the next generation of youth. Throughout my seven fantastic years as a member of the J.T. Lambert Intermediate School and East Stroudsburg High School South, I earned a total of (at least) 24 medals in all competitions combined. My best placing ever was the first place at States in Meteorology my 8th grade year, which was the pinnacle of my career as an Olympian.

6th grade Year
Medals are top 4 at Regionals and top 5 at States.

7th Grade Year
Medals are top 4 at Regionals and top 5 at States.

8th Grade Year
Medals are top 4 at Regionals and top 5 at States.

9th Grade Year
'''Medals are top 3 (in MVCs not overall) at MVC competition and top 4 at Regionals. ''' Score for MVCs is overall.

10th Grade Year
Medals are top 3 (in MVCs not overall) at MVC competition, top 4 at Regionals, and top 5 at States. Score for MVCS is overall.

11th Grade Year
Medals are top 3 (in MVcs not overall) at MVC competition, top 4 at Regional, and top 5 at States. Score for MVCs is overall

12th Grade Year
Medals are top 3 at MVCs (I have no idea what the overall placing was this year), top 4 at Regionals, and top 5 at States.

I'm not going to post my state places for my senior year. I was much more concerned with my AP tests, and thus really didn't study at all. I feel really ashamed to say so, but it's true.

Favorite B Division Events

 * It was hard ranking my top Division B events as I enjoyed all of the events I participated in(save Penathlon, but that's a story for somewhere else), but I have done so painstakingly so please forgive me if it seems arbitrary because some of it was truly so.

1. Road Scholar

2. Reach for the Stars/Solar System

3. Physical Science Lab

4. Meteorology

5.Science Word

6.Crave the Wave

7.Anatomy ... LAST: Pentathlon

Favorite C Division Events

 * There are many that enjoyed a lot and continue to enjoy, so bear with me. This was very painful to actually rank them, as I loved competing all of these events. I never did very well in Fermi or Forensics, and so that contributed to their respective placings. It was really hard to rank the star related, physics related, identification, and Road Scholar-like events as these were always my favorite. This ranking also reflects my poential career interests somewhat.

1. Astronomy

2. Remote Sensing

3. Geologic Mapping

4. Forestry

5. Water Quality

6. Physics Lab/Wind Power

7. Optics

8. Chemistry Lab

9. Technical Problem Solving

10. Experimental Design

11. Fermi Questions

12. Forensics

13. Anatomy and Physiology

=Other General Information=


 * A former student of East Stroudsburg Area School District's most successful Science Olympiad Team, J.T. Lambert Intermediate School, located in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.

Other Academic Competitions

 * I have been an active member of the East Stroudsburg High School South Science Olympiad, Scholastic Scrimmage, Chess, Envirothon, and Reading Olympics teams.

My Envirothon team has varied in its composition, but my freshman and sophomore years, Eaststroudsburg13 was a member of my team. Because of him, our team placed 3rd one year, and 2nd the next. During those years, we captured 1st place in the Soils section in 2012, and in 2011 captured 1st in Soils and the Current Issue sections. This was mostly Eaststroudsburg13's doing. My junior year, we qualified for the state level competition, knocking off Pleasant Valley High School, who had won the competition for 13 straight years before then. I did Forestry, which we managed to get a first place in, and we were runner-up in two of the other events I believe. We didn't do the best at states, but we still had a lot of fun. In my senior year, I will not be able to participate, as the County competition is the same day as the State Level Science O competition.

I made Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science states for a project regarding optical qualities of water at changing temperatures and different solutions of water (i.e. salt and sugar water) my junior year. In my senior year I have once again qualified for states with a project testing the coefficient of static friction of a running shoe on various surfaces. Pennsylvania Junior Academy of Science, or PJAS for short, is basically a competition against a rubric where the competitor designs and performs an experiment, and then presents the results to a board of scientists. I would have competed in this earlier in high school, but it did not exist until my sophomore year, and by the time I learned about it, it was less than a month before the competition.

I have never been exceptionally good at chess, but have always enjoyed playing it. My freshman year I played mostly JV5 or JV4 (the last two boards on the competition team). This was by far my worst year, as I don't think I won a game more than 4 times. My sophomore year, I was moved up to JV1, and even played Varsity 9 once. I still didn't have a great season, but it was better than the previous year. My junior year, I consistently played the varsity 7 board position, and again improved my record. As my senior year began, I had to move up to Varsity 4/5, and had a good start (2-0) but had a dismal time when I played black 6 straight matches and only won once, drew once. Still, my senior year was by far my favorite year of competition as I enjoyed chess more while understanding more of the strategies involved at the higher boards.

I joined Reading Olympics my junior year 4 days before the competition, due to a team not having enough members. I read one book, on the way to the competition, and also had read another one 3 years previously, but still managed to help the team (I think we were called the Altruvian (?) Trolls), and we performed decently. We placed about 5th or 6th from my memory with about 54 points. In my senior year, the team's name was the "Legendary Literary Lightning!" In my senior year, I read 9 books, including the one the night before and one on the way there, and answered most of the questions on my books correctly. Our team scored a total of 60 points (60 total questions answered correctly) and tied for second place.

Scholastic Scrimmage, also called quiz bowl in other areas of the nation, is essentially a team version of Jeopardy. There are three teams of four, with substitutes allowed between rounds, and there are three rounds to each match. The first round has 12 questions, each worth 10 points, and any member on any team can answer, but there is no discussing the answer. If a person gets the question correct, the team then receives another question for a "bonus" 10 points if correct in answering. The team can collaborate on these bonus questions. The second round, called the lightning round, is where the team in last chooses one of four categories provided for the week. The team then has 60 seconds to answer 10 questions, each worth 10 points, with the ability to pass and come back later. Any question not answered, either because of an incorrect answer or the question not being heard due to time, is passed on to the team to their left. This process is repeated for all three teams. The third and final round is much like the first, except the team must get 3 correct questions in order to get a bonus. The bonus questions in this round have four-part, with each part worth 5 points. EASTstroudsburg13 was on my team freshman and sophomore years. In my freshman year, I played on the JV team. The Varsity team that year was exceptionally large. My sophomore year, I performed much better, becoming co-captain of the much smaller team's JV squad, and occasionally playing on the varsity level. In the MVC tournament, we placed 2nd overall out of 7 teams. I participated in the Colonial IU tournament with my team, which is essentially the District playoffs for our league. Our team did very poorly placing 2nd or 3rd to last out of 16 or 17 teams, but we greatly enjoyed the experience (mostly the doughnuts). The next year, my junior year, I enjoyed full-time playing varsity, and also splitting captain-ship. We only placed 3rd in the championships that year, but it was a great deal of fun. The Colonial tournament was postponed from its usual date and thus, sadly, conflicted with a competition for Science Olympiad so most of the team was unable to attend. We placed last from what I understand. My senior year, I entered with high hopes for the team as we had a new coach, and 4 new seniors. We dominated most of the season, and ended up taking 2nd in the championship tournament. I greatly enjoyed this competition throughout all my years.

Other Activities
I also actively participated in the Math and Computer club, the school musical (2013-Carousel, 2014-Bye Bye Birdie), Go! Club (based around the ancient Chinese game of Go), and the Cavalier Marching Band. I am an ex-member of the Choraliers (the elite choir at East Stroudsburg High School South), mainly due to them becoming a jazz choir my senior year. Throughout high school, I also participated in County, District, and Regional Chorus festivals.

PAML, or Pennsylvania Math League, was another in-school competition I did. For all four years, I was my grade's highest scorer, and received an award at the Senior Awards Ceremony because of it. This is basically a 6-question, monthly test that involves tricky word math problems and higher level mathematics.

Outside of school, I also participated in the Boy Scouts of America, where I earned my Life Scout. I unfortunately never earned my Eagle because I became too busy studying for AP tests, but I still nevertheless learned a lot from my time in Scouts.

Sports
Throughout high school, I truly did enjoy playing sports almost as much as I did doing Science Olympiad. I participated in Cross Country and Track and Field, as well as soccer, Ultimate Frisbee, and Quidditch outside of school. I preferred XC out of all of the school sports because I enjoy long-distance running, and I was actually fairly good at it. I was team captain my senior year, but I ran my best time sophomore year (18:12, but that course was short so I don't count it. My other best time was an 18:25). I was injured off and on my sophomore year in track with bursitis in my knee, tendonitis in my hip, and a broken arm, but I still ran at conference championships for the 2 mile. In my junior year, I re-aggravated the hip injury and was out for 2 weeks of XC preseason, after which I ran quite a bit slower for a while. I was not able to do Track & Field my junior year due to timing conflict with state level competitions, and was only able to participate in about 3 weeks of track my senior year.