On Saturday, Nov. 20th, the Belvidere North Science Olympiad team participated in the annual Palatine High School invitational and got second place in their division.

      In years past, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Science Olympiad teams would travel to Palatine High School to participate in the annual invitational. However, because of the pandemic, all of the teams stayed at their home schools and competed in the invitational virtually.

      For Belvidere North’s team, competitors were assigned to various science-related events and completed their events virtually and live against other teams. Judges and officials of the invitational completed the scoring of each event, as established by the Illinois Science Olympiad organization.

      Schools from all over Northern Illinois and the Chicago area participated in the invitational. There were a total of 88 teams that participated in the Palatine invitational, Belvidere North hosting two of those teams: the red and blue teams. Belvidere North was in the A division and competed against other teams in the A, AA, and AAA divisions.

      Belvidere North’s Red team got second place in the A division while the Blue team got 11th place. Overall, out of all of the divisions, the Red team got 37th place out of all 88 teams while the Blue team got 63rd place.

     The Red team got the top four places for eight events, which were the Astronomy, Cell Biology, Code-busters, Detector Building, Dynamic Planet, Environmental Chemistry, Rocks and Minerals, and Wifi Lab events. The Blue team placed top-four for the Cell Biology and Dynamic Planet events.

      These are the best results that the Belvidere North Science Olympiad team has ever had at the Palatine High School invitational, making for a strong start to the competition season. The next invitational that Belvidere North will participate in is the Harlem High School invite that will occur virtually on Saturday, Dec. 4th.