As you may already know, the national tournament will be held virtually on Saturday, May 14th, 2022, and will be hosted by Caltech. They have a great article about their connection to Science Olympiad and their plans. You can view that here.
The 2022 Ohio Science Olympiad State Tournament will also be held virtually on Saturday, April 9th, 2022. We considered many factors in choosing that route. I want to share some here:
With the national tournament being virtual, having a virtual state tournament puts our Ohio teams in the best situation possible related to competition.
Last season's virtual competition paved the way for making sure that all 46 events count toward team scores in a virtual format, which will be our goal at the state level.
While there is still a lot of uncertainty around COVID and any ensuing responses, the best thing we can do is make sure we have a state tournament. In my first year as a part of the state office, I witnessed firsthand the impact of a canceled state tournament. We don't want to see that happen again. Confirming a virtual format early in the season allows for better planning.
While in-person events are now a possibility on the Ohio State campus, many of the classrooms that are normally used for our events have limited capacity. The likelihood is that we would have to nearly double our footprint across the campus, posing a few challenges, chief among those being the logistical management of an event that spread out.
NOTICE: The University of Akron will not take custodial responsibility for minors while participating in at Akron Regional Science Olympiad. Custodial responsibility will remain with teachers, parents, legal guardians and chaperones. Minors must be properly supervised at all times.
