Science Olympiad (Sci Oly) at Naperville Central is continuing to showcase students’ skills in the science field with competitions in various topics.

Central’s team competes four times a year, with two Invitationals, a Regional competition and a State competition. Sometimes the team qualifies for Nationals by placing in first or second at State.

In preparation for the competitions, members of the club have meetings on Mondays to look over competition results and practice for upcoming ones.

Seniors Joy Chiu and Isabel Fan are captains of Central’s Sci Oly team. Chiu has been participating in Science Olympiad since the sixth grade and Fan started as a freshman.

“We are divided into 23 different events ranging from earth sciences to engineering and we compete in individual events for individual medals and team medals,” Fan said.

Science Olympiad is an “academic track meet,” according to the website. Students at the high school level compete in events, from construction competitions to tests such as  Astronomy, Disease Detective (where students study how diseases are spread) and Fossils and Forensics.

Naperville Central has a Junior Varsity and a Varsity team for Science Olympiad. Though the JV team does not have the opportunity to compete at State, it gives underclassmen the experience of being on the team. The competitors are given one hour to complete each event.

At the first invitational the team attended this school year in Palatine on Nov. 22, Central’s Sci Oly team came in third place. The team then competed at the Crystal Lake Sci Oly invitational on Jan. 24. At this particular Invitational, the team as a whole was not ranked, but individuals placed.

Chiu and Fan both compete in the Disease Detectives (which is Chiu’s personal favorite) and in the Bungee Drop events together, among other individual events.

Chiu says her favorite part is being around friends while competing.

“I think the best part is just being around friends the whole day, and working together to win medals,” Chiu said.

Head Coach Lindsey Stevenson, a Chemistry and Biology teacher, says that the team does better in study events and tests where there is a way to prepare.

“We do really good in study events, [such as] Anatomy and Physiology[and] all the paper and pencil tests,” Stevenson said.

Their next competition is a Regional tournament at College of DuPage on March 14.