Mansi Shah

This year, 11 students on North’s Science Olympiad team qualified for the Illinois Science Olympiad state tournament, which will take place on April 20 at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Science Olympiad qualified in a variety of different competitions, including Chemistry, Astronomy, Physiology, Dynamic Planet, Disease, Geologic Mapping and Optics and Wind Power.

“The best way to describe it is that it’s a lot like what track looks like,” said Stephen Macaitis, Science Olympiad club adviser. “We have 23 different events, and in each event, we have two students competing in each event.”

Seniors Alina Antony, Katya Kadyschuk, Leslie Lainio, Annabelle Handjojo and Jaffar Mahkamov, junior Abi Freedlund, sophomore Ashban Aziz, and freshmen Kieran Edwards, Talha Hasan, Arpan Shah and Atharv Sood all qualified for state this year on behalf of North.

“Some of the events are builds, we got seven build events, such as flight, where we actually make planes that need to fly,” said Macaitis. “But most of the events are just based on, for example, anatomy physiology, where we have to study three body systems and just get a test, and they compete against other schools on these tests.”

Science Olympiad is relatively new to North, founded just four years ago by Kadyschuk while she was a freshman.

“I started Science Olympiad in middle school at Wredling,” said Antony, who qualified for state in Chemistry. “But there wasn’t a Science Olympiad team at North at the time, so I talked with the founder of the club, Katya, and we decided to start Science Olympiad at North.”

Science Olympiad meets every Friday to prepare for competitions.

“The average meeting in Science Olympiad, we meet together and ask ‘Hey, what do we need to do today?’” said Antony. “And then, we break off into our events, and we’ll ask, ‘Are you guys having trouble with anything? Is there any information on the practice test or in past competitions that you didn’t know about?’ And then we study based on that.”

Despite the club’s recent creation, North’s Science Olympiad has grown quickly.

“I think there is a desire in this school for students to be part of something that’s competitive,” said Macaitis. “There are students here who want to be challenged, and these topics that they’re studying are hard.”

While Macaitis attributes a competitive spirit at North as driving Science Olympiad’s growth in a relatively short span of time, Antony also attributes the club’s growth to an abundance of science courses at North.

“I think our school has a lot of students that go into higher science classes, we see like AP Chem, AP Physics, AP Bio,” said Antony “I think the diversity of sciences that Science Olympiad has, we have engineering, to meteorology, to fossils, I think anyone that’s interested in any type of science can come, and as long they feel enjoyed by it, they can compete in it.”