National science competition coming to Bloomington in 2006

This spring, Bloomington will become the mecca for aspiring young scientists from across the country. \nThe National Science Olympiad tournament will be held May 20, 2006 at IU, marking the second time Bloomington has been offered the opportunity to play host to the esteemed science competition. \nThe tournament gives teams of middle school and high school students the chance to test their knowledge of science in a variety of hands-on competitions. \nCurt Simic, president of the IU Foundation, said being chosen to play host to the competition not once, but twice, was an honor for the University. \n"We're one of only two universities that have been allowed to do it a second time, so it really is a feather in our caps," he said. "There's such a resurgence of attention to the sciences on this campus, with the new Simon Hall building and with the really great leadership coming out of the College of Arts and Sciences departments ... it really is a wonderful statement of confidence in IU." \nThe tournament also takes place on a regional and state level, allowing teams to face off locally in order to move on to the national competition. IU has been playing host to the state-level competition for Indiana since 1995 but has not hosted the national competition in roughly 10 years. \nEvents are broken down into three general areas: science concepts and knowledge; science processes and inquiry skills; and science application and technology. Competitions range from identifying constellations to building bottle rockets and robots. \nJocelyn Bowie, IU co-director of National Science Olympiad, said the tournament is not unlike sporting competitions. \n"It's really like being on an athletic team of some kind," she said. "If you're on the track team, you don't run every event. That's how Science Olympiad is set up. Schools are allowed to bring teams of 15 students and up to five alternates."\nBowie said she expects about 60 teams to participate in the competition, as well as "junior varsity" teams that sometimes come to watch and cheer on their classmates. \nBowie said IU has known it would play host to the event since 2003, when it was encouraged to place a bid to put on the tournament. She said she expects somewhere between 4,000 and 5,000 people to stay in Bloomington over the four-day course of the competition and hopes to gather between 300 and 500 volunteers for the event. \nBetween $150,000 and $200,000 will be raised for the nonprofit event, including a recent donation from the Sallie Mae fund for $50,000.\nSimic said the donation from Sallie Mae was very fitting. \n"Sallie Mae was very excited and interested in doing it," he said. "It was a good match for their interest and our interest. They really do push making it possible for people to go to college through a huge loan program, so this gives them a chance to get in front of some of the best students in the country." \nBowie said the tournament was also an excellent opportunity for the University. \n"We're going to show off the campus and hope we recruit a lot of students," she said. \nAnyone interested in volunteering in the event can fill out a volunteer registration form at the 2006 event's Web site at http://www.indiana.edu/~nso.