Grosse Pointe South’s Science Olympiad team competed on April 26, at East Lansing in their long-awaited state competition. With many meetings and practices this year, the team is in full swing to compete for gold and sweep the other teams. Tabby Eldredge has been hard at work preparing her team for some fantastic competitions.
Fourth-year returning student, Adelina Parikh ‘25, has been waiting for her final competition. Wrapping up states this last Saturday, April 26th, she was happy with the turnout and tried her hardest. As a fourth-year student on this team, she has helped the underclassmen learn the ropes and prepare younger students for the upcoming years ahead. She is one of the two students who placed third at states.
“A team of 15 students combines to compete in 22 different events, aiming to place as high as possible in each one,” Parikh said. “There are ways to find success as both an individual and as a school; it was up to each individual to prepare and study for events.”
Isabella Rondini ‘25 is also a returning senior, saying her final farewells to the team, and giving her all at states. The competition is organized in a way where everyone competes in a different category. The months before are spent preparing for different events and situations that you will have to use your thinking and creativity for.
“We have weekly meetings to prepare and get our stuff ready, and we placed top 30 in almost every event,” Rondini said. “The competition goes in blocks, everyone has a specific event that they always do, as a team, we all spend meetings preparing and organizing our specific events that we all will compete in.”
Eldredge has been hard at work, preparing her students to use their skills of thinking, creativity and performing, so they can all together score as high as possible for their team. Entering her first year at South, she is familiar with Science Olympiad but this is her first year taking on this leadership at Grosse Pointe South. She started geting involved in high school as she participated herself, she now leads the high schoolers.
“I started doing Science Olympiad when I was in high school and I’ve been a coach at two other schools that I taught at,” Eldredge said. “This is my first year in the South. It’s fun watching the kids challenge themselves to try something outside of their comfort zone, seeing them be successful is fun. Overall, I was able to help guide the students and we did similar placement with our region eight competitors.
