New Coaches

If you are new to Science Olympiad, this page will provide you with some resources to help you start to build a winning team.

Please take note that all content available on this page are resources that I created as I learned to be a coach for our middle school. Now that I'm retired from coaching, I'm sharing this information with new coaches to help them get a kick start. If you have any questions about anything on this page, please contact me, Robbin Lynn at 760 579 2261. I'm happy to help where I can.

A Common Question about # of Students per Event
If an event is a two-person event, a pair of students works together as a team. However, when an event says "Up to 2" that means that it is OK for one person to represent the team in that event - in case a partner is sick, in case no one else wanted to do that event. Mystery Architecture B asks for 2 students - I suppose that the writers of the event feel that it would be very difficult for one person to do this event alone. However, if you have only one person to do that event, we will let her/him do it alone.

The two students working together on a written test - like Astronomy C or Reach for the Stars B - usually tear the test booklet in half. Each student works on half of the test, then they discuss things they do not know - whispering, of course - and try to fill in the remaining answers.

For the events with lab stations, the two students work together on each station.

For construction events, the students work together with the device at the Competition. One student may do it alone if necessary. Also, you may send another student from the same team to help someone test a device, but be sure they know who will get the medals if the device does well.

Helpful Suggestions from Other New Coaches
I'm in northwest Missouri and last year was my first time coaching. Last year we were thrown into it with very little knowledge so we were all winging it. Anyway, we were in the same shape as you...started far too late and had no prior experience to go by. So, we gathered the kids who were interested and picked events that they wanted to try and that we thought we could figure out and went from there.

We originally left out several events due to lack of kids and time. We took everything with us that we needed according to the manuals and rules and took a chance! After we got there and figured out what was going on we decided to send kids to every event so they could at least gather some info. We decided that it would be our building year and we would use it to train for this year. It worked out really great and the kids had a blast! We are from a small rural district and we had only 13 kids on the team last year, but we brought home 5 medals and placed 10th!

So, my suggestion to you is just make it fun and do what you can this year and consider it a learning year...tell the kids to absorb all they can at competition and take notes. The SO web site is helpful and there are several materials you can purchase to help you out...we used our allotted budget this year to buy prior test booklets, DVD's of the actual events, etc. Just don't overwhelm yourself or your students and it will be just fine! Good luck!
Kim

Downloads
Information Meeting Presentation
This is a Power Point presentation that can be used for the first information meeting for students and parents. It contains events from 2007, so to make it work for your school, first edit the master slide and add your own school logo, then update as you see fit for your needs.

Information Meeting Handout
This is a Microsoft Word document that is useful to hand out at the information meeting. It contains info from 2007, but is a good template for your school, just change the important dates for 2008 and the coach contact information you want to share with students and parents.

Student Sign Up Form
This is Microsoft Excel file that can be customized to the needs of your school. A good practice is to have kids select their events by ranking them, which you'll see on the second page. Again, this document is from 2007 so will need to be updated accordingly.

Master Roster for Head Coach
This is Microsoft Excel file that can be customized to the needs of your school. It contains several worksheets to help you keep track of all the kids, coaches and other important information. Feel free to call me if you have any questions about it.

Pre-Event Meeting Presentation
This is a Power Point presentation that can be used to brief your students, coaches and parents before the actual Science Olympiad competition. It covers things like where to meet, what to bring, where to meet, etc. It contains info from 2007, so to make it work for your school, first edit the master slide and add your own school logo, then update as you see fit for your needs.

Meeting Agenda
This is Microsoft Word file that can be customized to the needs of your school. It's an agenda I used to make sure everything was covered with students, parents & coaches several days before the Science Olympiad competition.