TaliJoy and Daddy went to the competition explained below last weekend. Tali was in the egg-drop competition (she placed as #15!) Their team did well considering that it was their first time at nationals. We got one 2nd placing out of 50 states! We were blessed to be part of the Pigrimage study process and such. Thank you every one for praying for them down there! It was an encouragement for them. May this team use their brightness and love for science to serve the Lord of Creation.

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Gaithersburg-area homeschoolers representing Maryland at national science tournament

By Carlos Bongioanni

For Germantown, Md., middle schooler Zachary Widenhofer, being on a state championship team heading to a national science competition this month is like being in a big-screen sports thriller.

“We are like the ‘Hoosiers’ of Science Olympiad,” said Zachary, 12, a first-year member of the Pilgrimage Homeschool team, which placed first in the Middle School Division of the Maryland State Science Olympiad Tournament held at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore on March 31.

The Pilgrimage team, made up of a group of homeschooled children from the greater Gaithersburg area, will represent Maryland at the National Science Olympiad Tournament to be held in Orlando, Fla., on May 18-19.

The annual Science Olympiad competition involves thousands of teams from all 50 states from public and private schools and some homeschool groups. The competition is split into high school and middle school divisions. This is the second year that the Pilgrimage team has competed in the middle school division.

Early in the calendar year, teams, comprised of up to 15 students each, compete in regional events to qualify for the state competition. The top team in each division from each state then goes on to compete at the national event, which, this year, will be held at the University of Central Florida in Orlando. Some of the larger states are allowed to bring two teams for each division. At each level, teams compete in 23 events that test their knowledge of subjects ranging from physics, chemistry and biology to engineering and earth/space sciences.

Esther Smith, a retired high school math and science teacher who lives in Monrovia, Md., volunteers as the training coach for Pilgrimage. She noted that the events “require students to understand and apply science concepts at a deeper level than is normal for this age level and then to use this material in competition with a partner, which develops leadership and team work. … I just enjoy the program and watching students get excited about science.”

Getting excited about science was pretty much what happened to Anna Sohn, 12, a first-year Pilgrimage team member from Gaithersburg, Md.

“I learned a lot about myself: that competition motivates me to study,” said Anna who added that before she joined the team she “wasn’t very excited about science. Science Olympiad has shown me that science is fun!”

But, fun aside, getting to be state champions isn’t a cake walk. It required a lot of dedication and study.

For Anna’s father, Gene Sohn, the payoff has been tremendous. “Even though the competition is intense and winning is far from guaranteed, I am glad simply for the learning my daughter went through in preparing for the competition. In my mind,” Sohn continued, “winning anything at the tournaments is gravy. However, I know my daughter is completely hooked.”

Second-year team member Natasha Bongioanni, 15, from Germantown, recalled the moment that really put a spark in her studies. It was after the regional competition held at the University of Maryland in February, when the Pilgrimage squad was shocked to learn they had just beaten the Science Olympiad powerhouse, North Bethesda Middle School, the state champions for two years running.

It was the first real inkling Natasha and others on her team had that they might actually have a chance at winning the state competition and go on to nationals. But the win also came with an alarming reality of what they just did to their main competitors. “One of the coaches from North Bethesda,” Natasha recounted, “came up and congratulated us and told us ‘You just lit a fire under our kids.’ All of us started wishing we hadn’t won the regional event, but knowing that they were going to be studying harder made us study harder.”

For Zachary, the most memorable moment of his Science Olympiad experience came at the state competition’s awards ceremony when “the announcer called North Bethesda as second, and we knew we won State.”

Pilgrimage won by a razor-thin margin of one point.

“We were really neck-and-neck with NBMS,” said West Coile, the head coach of Pilgrimage. “They are amazing competitors. It was a total team effort getting this win.”

Coile, of Gaithersburg, credited the team’s success not only to the students’ hard work and parents’ involvement, but also to God. They had “a lot of prayer support,” he said of the team, which is made up of families of various faith groups.

As far as how well they’ll do next, Coile, whose own children Matthew, 14, Rachel, 13, and Daniel, 10, are on the team, said, “I just want us to do a good job representing Maryland, homeschooling and Christianity… The level of competition at nationals has been called ‘insane.’ … Hopefully, we will help make this year’s national tournament live up to that billing.”

While Zachary said he’s not expecting to win at nationals where Pilgrimage will be one of 60 middle school teams competing, “I’m hoping we come in the top 10 or 20. Some people think homeschoolers aren’t the smartest of kids, but this shows that we are smart enough to go to nationals.”

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