The Topeka Collegiate School team, coached by middle school science teacher Loren Shinn, took first-place at the Regional Science Olympiad competition Jan. 10 in Salina.
This is the fourth first-place finish in four years. Students medaled in 13 of 23 events, taking home five first places, two second places and six third places. The 15-member team's overall score was 90.
Results were: first place in Ecology, Daniel Kennedy and David Wang, eighth-graders; first place in Wheeled Vehicle, Patrick Elisha, seventh-grader, and Joe Vosburgh, sixth-grader; first place in Storm the Castle, Eddie Linquist and Cain Mathis, sixth-graders; first place in Food Science, Wang and Natalie Shinn, sixth-grader; first place in Metric Mastery, Kennedy and Edward Collazo, seventh-grader; second place in Heredity, Kennedy and Mathis; first place in Science Crime Busters, Wang and Shelby Carpenter, seventh-grader; third place in Simple Machines, Collazo and Linquist; third place in Tower Building, Carpenter and Elisha; third place in Solar System, Collazo and Shinn; third place in Anatomy, Kennedy and Vosburgh; third place in Write It, Do It, Joseph Barber, eighth-grader, and Carpenter; and first place in Balloon Launch Glider, Nick Massey, eighth-grader, and Shinn.
Teachers at Topeka Collegiate School will meet with parents, guardians and caregivers to share effective learning strategies through the "Learning about Learning Workshop: The Challenge of Homework" from 10 a.m. to noon Saturday.
"Understanding All Kinds of Minds" is a program designed to develop a partnership between parents/caregivers, educators and children to support success in school and at home. The workshop will investigate the demands of homework and strategies for helping children during homework time.
Topeka Collegiate will host about 25 Peace Corps volunteers. The volunteers will speak to every class about their experiences.
This week is spirit week at Topeka Collegiate. Student Council members are sponsoring a series of events and theme days to encourage school spirit.
From 12:35 to 1:20 p.m. Thursday, fourth-graders will stage an Explorer's Wax Museum. The students have researched explorers and will dress as those explorers and pose as wax figures. Visitors can go by and push a button to signal the students to come to life and describe the explorers' exploits.