Nicole McEnerney
Science Olympiad Coordinator
Room Number: 211
Email: nmcenerney@bellvillebrahmas.org
Meeting dates, times, and location still need to be confirmed with Mrs. McEnerney.
The Science Olympiad is a competitive STEM program in which students prepare for events covering science, engineering, technology, laboratory skills, problem solving, and design. Bellville High School students compete as a team, with individual students preparing for specific events throughout the season. Follow the team’s preparation, competitions, results, and the students behind the science.
- Upcoming tournaments and competition dates
- Individual Science Olympiad events
- Students preparing and studying for events
- Engineering, building, and design challenges
- Testing and improving devices before competition
- Laboratory and experimental events
- Biology, chemistry, physics, and earth science events
- Team selections and event assignments
- Invitational and regional competition results
- Medals and individual event placements
- Team standings and accomplishments
- Qualification for higher levels of competition
- Students overcoming design or testing problems
- Interesting projects, devices, and experiments
- Behind-the-scenes tournament preparation
- Returning competitors mentoring newer students
- Student profiles and STEM interests
- Changes and improvements made between competitions
Covering the Science Olympiad Beat
Start Here
- Introduce yourself to Mrs. McEnerney and explain that you are covering Science Olympiad for the BVP Newsroom.
- Ask when and where the Science Olympiad team regularly meets and practices.
- Ask how she prefers to be contacted and how far in advance interviews or coverage should be arranged.
- Request the team’s current schedule, including practices, invitationals, tournaments, and important competition dates.
- Ask which Science Olympiad events Bellville students are preparing for this year.
- Ask for the names, grade levels, and event assignments of team members.
- Find out how students are assigned to events and whether they compete individually or with partners.
- Ask which events involve building, testing, experiments, or other activities that could be photographed or filmed during preparation.
- Ask about the team’s goals for the season and any accomplishments or results from previous competitions that provide useful background.
- Check with Mrs. McEnerney and team members regularly for updates and possible stories.
- When you discover a possible story, submit it as a pitch before beginning full coverage unless your teacher tells you otherwise.
Your Responsibilities
- Check for Science Olympiad updates at least once each news cycle.
- Maintain contact with Mrs. McEnerney and team members.
- Keep track of practices, tournaments, competition dates, results, and advancement opportunities.
- Learn which events Bellville students are competing in and watch for interesting developments within individual events.
- Look beyond tournament results for stories about preparation, experimentation, problem-solving, building, testing, failure, redesign, and improvement.
- Watch for students developing unusual devices, experiments, techniques, or solutions.
- Look for students or teams who overcome a problem, dramatically improve, earn a medal, or achieve an important competition result.
- Pitch promising stories to the newsroom.
- Arrange interviews, photography, and video coverage in advance.
- Confirm event names, student names, placements, scores, tournament results, and advancement information before publication.
- Follow up after competitions to collect official results, photographs, reactions, and information about what comes next.
Important
Science Olympiad is much more than reporting who won a medal. Some of your best stories may happen before the competition while students are designing, building, experimenting, testing, failing, making changes, and trying again.
If something doesn’t work, that may be the story rather than a reason to ignore it. Find out what the students were trying to accomplish, what went wrong, how they diagnosed the problem, what they changed, and whether their next attempt worked.
You also don’t need to understand the science before you begin reporting. Ask the students to explain it to you in plain language. If you can understand their explanation, you’ll be better prepared to explain it clearly to your audience.
Reporting Your Science Olympiad Stories
Possible Story Ideas
- Students begin preparing for this year’s Science Olympiad events.
- The team prepares for an upcoming invitational, regional, or other tournament.
- Students design, build, or test a device for competition.
- A device fails during testing and students have to redesign or troubleshoot it.
- A team makes a major improvement after weeks of practice or experimentation.
- Students develop an unusual or creative solution to an event challenge.
- Bellville competes in a Science Olympiad tournament.
- A student or team earns a medal or places highly in an event.
- Bellville achieves a strong overall team finish.
- The team advances to the next level of competition.
- A first-year competitor prepares for their first tournament.
- An experienced competitor mentors a newer team member.
- A student competes in an event connected to a STEM field they hope to pursue.
- Students balance preparation for several different Science Olympiad events.
- A particular event gives students an especially difficult or unusual challenge.
Signs There May Be A Story
Pay attention when:
- Students begin building, experimenting, or practicing for a new event.
- A device or experiment isn’t working as expected.
- Students make a major design change after testing.
- A student discovers a solution to a problem the team has struggled with.
- A competition or major deadline is approaching.
- Students are spending significant time preparing for a particular event.
- A student is competing in Science Olympiad for the first time.
- Someone is showing unusual skill or improvement in an event.
- Students are preparing something visually interesting that could make good photo or video coverage.
- The team returns from a tournament with medals, placements, or other notable results.
- Bellville qualifies to advance in competition.
- A student performs much better—or worse—than expected and there is a story behind what happened.
- Team members begin changing their approach based on what happened at an earlier competition.
Questions to Ask: The 5 W's and 1 H
You will not necessarily ask every question below. Select the questions that fit your story and ask follow-up questions whenever an answer is unclear or incomplete.
Who was involved?
- Which students competed or worked on the event?
- Who were the partners or teammates?
- Who took the lead on the project, device, experiment, or preparation?
- Who helped the students prepare?
What happened?
- What Science Olympiad event were you competing in?
- What were you required to do?
- What did you build, study, test, or prepare?
- What happened during the competition?
- What worked well?
- What went wrong?
- What result or placement did you earn?
When did it happen?
- When was the competition?
- When did you begin preparing?
- How long did you work on this event?
- When is the next competition?
Where did it happen?
- Where was the tournament held?
- Where did you practice or prepare?
- Where will the team compete next?
Why does it matter?
- Why did you choose this particular event?
- Why was this challenge difficult?
- Why did you choose the approach you used?
- Why did something work—or fail?
- Why is this result important to you or the team?
How did it happen?
- How did you prepare?
- How did you solve the problems you encountered?
- How did your design or approach change during testing?
- How did you perform at the tournament?
- How will you prepare differently next time?
People You May Need to Interview
Depending on the story, consider interviewing:
- The students competing in the event
- Partners or teammates who prepared together
- Science Olympiad Coordinator Nicole McEnerney
- Students who designed or built the device
- Students responsible for experiments or testing
- A student who earned a medal or notable placement
- A first-year Science Olympiad competitor
- An experienced competitor who can explain how preparation has changed
- Students who encountered a significant problem and had to solve it
- Team members who can explain what happened during the tournament
- Teachers or others who helped students prepare, when appropriate
Whenever possible, talk to the students actually doing the work. Mrs. McEnerney can provide official information and context, but the students can tell you what it was like to build, test, compete, succeed, fail, adjust, and try again.
What You Need to Collect
Before writing or producing the story, collect:
- Correctly spelled names of everyone involved
- Each student’s grade level
- The official name of the Science Olympiad event
- A simple explanation of what competitors must do in that event
- Tournament name, date, and location
- Names of teammates or partners
- How students prepared
- How long they prepared
- Important challenges or problems they encountered
- Changes they made during preparation or testing
- Official scores, placements, medals, or team results, when applicable
- Whether the result affects advancement to another competition
- At least one useful quote from a student involved
- Comments from Mrs. McEnerney when additional context is needed
- Photographs or video of preparation, testing, competition, or the students involved
- Photographs of devices, projects, medals, or other relevant materials
- Information about what happens next
For a build or engineering story, also collect what the device is supposed to do, how it works, what changed during testing, and why those changes were made.
Before You Leave
Ask yourself:
- Do I have the correct spelling of every name?
- Do I know each student’s grade level?
- Do I have the correct name of the Science Olympiad event?
- Can I explain the event in a way someone unfamiliar with Science Olympiad can understand?
- Do I understand what the students were trying to accomplish?
- Do I know how they prepared?
- Do I know what worked?
- Do I know what didn’t work?
- Did I ask why something worked or failed?
- Do I know what students changed or learned?
- Have all scores, medals, placements, and tournament results been confirmed?
- Do I know whether the team or students advance?
- Did I interview the students actually involved?
- Do I have a strong quote that tells me something beyond “It was fun” or “I’m excited”?
- Do I have useful photographs or video?
- Can I identify everyone shown in my photographs?
- Do I know what happens next?