Science Olympiad Events 2019-2020

[UTF-8 U+6211 U+662F]

but there's no more history in machines

Why would you want a notesheet-only event anyway

[JoeyC]

now that I have a binder I have to do something with it, regardless of the fact I only need one sheet

[Name]

So events like machines and thermo.... don't really need a big binder of notes, maybe just 1 sheet of notes, yet SciOlyCo always decides to give us a binder.

They do for the history questions

and besides, binders are easier to read in the first place

Let me provide some perspective on why we do this (with a caveat that other national committees have different opinions on this):

1. It reduces the burden on the event supervisors, as they don't have to be checking for extra pages or notes or debate whether 2 single sided sheets of paper pasted together are the same as 1 double sided sheet of paper.
2. It reduces the burden on the competitors, as they don't have to worry about using super small fonts to squeeze more information onto their notes or make judgment calls about what to include and what not to include
3. Contrary to your hypothesis about the reason being history, it pushes good event supervisors to create tests with more analysis and applied type questions instead of just reciting facts or history, as they know most teams will have the facts / history stuff in their binders.
4. It encourages teams to collect more information in advance of the event, which is somewhat correlated to actually studying and preparing for the event versus going in to it 'cold turkey'.
5. It mimics what happens in the real world, in that if a scientist or engineer is presented with a question they don't know the answer to, they'll try to use various resources to determine the answer instead of just guessing or skipping it altogether.

As a side note, we've been trying to put language in the rules limiting the scope of history / trivia type questions. I personally enjoy including them and think they are within the reasonable scope of knowledge of science and engineering, but I tend to be in the minority on the committee with regards to this.

[TheCrazyChemist]

So events like machines and thermo.... don't really need a big binder of notes, maybe just 1 sheet of notes, yet SciOlyCo always decides to give us a binder.

Imo the thermo binder was useful because we had a bunch of annoying conversions (like obscure temperature conversions) and formulas.
On the other hand, it was also the most annoying excuse for test writers to put literally anything on a test.

[hmmm]

So events like machines and thermo.... don't really need a big binder of notes, maybe just 1 sheet of notes, yet SciOlyCo always decides to give us a binder.

They do for the history questions

and besides, binders are easier to read in the first place

I believe that the only events which should get binders are the ID events.
If the bio,earth,and chem events get cheatsheets, why do physics events get binders? They can always remove history from the events.
And road definitely shouldn't get a binder/box/whatever.

[Adi1008]

So events like machines and thermo.... don't really need a big binder of notes, maybe just 1 sheet of notes, yet SciOlyCo always decides to give us a binder.

They do for the history questions

and besides, binders are easier to read in the first place

I believe that the only events which should get binders are the ID events.
If the bio,earth,and chem events get cheatsheets, why do physics events get binders? They can always remove history from the events.
And road definitely shouldn't get a binder/box/whatever.

I'm not sure about this. I think Astronomy is does a great job of incorporating a binder into the event (and goes even further to let competitors use a computer) while keeping the event conceptually challenging and fulfilling. I completely agree with chalker's rationale for using binders - a lot of my courses in college are structured the same way - and I think that if the events' tests are written well, it can make it a pretty good experience for everyone. Not every event should have a binder, but I think physics events/Astronomy having them is the least of Science Olympiad's problems.

[AlfWeg]

Anyone know anything about the protein modeling topic this year?

[hmmm]

They do for the history questions

and besides, binders are easier to read in the first place

I believe that the only events which should get binders are the ID events.
If the bio,earth,and chem events get cheatsheets, why do physics events get binders? They can always remove history from the events.
And road definitely shouldn't get a binder/box/whatever.

I'm not sure about this. I think Astronomy is does a great job of incorporating a binder into the event (and goes even further to let competitors use a computer) while keeping the event conceptually challenging and fulfilling. I completely agree with chalker's rationale for using binders - a lot of my courses in college are structured the same way - and I think that if the events' tests are written well, it can make it a pretty good experience for everyone. Not every event should have a binder, but I think physics events/Astronomy having them is the least of Science Olympiad's problems.

I agree, but is there that much of a difference between the difficulty of physics events and bio,earth and chem events(Note:I don't do physics)? By this reasoning, many of the other events should get binders too. Road Scholar, on the other hand, requires few pages in a binder(according to my teammates), which could definitely fit on a cheatsheet.

[UTF-8 U+6211 U+662F]

I believe that the only events which should get binders are the ID events.
If the bio,earth,and chem events get cheatsheets, why do physics events get binders? They can always remove history from the events.
And road definitely shouldn't get a binder/box/whatever.

I'm not sure about this. I think Astronomy is does a great job of incorporating a binder into the event (and goes even further to let competitors use a computer) while keeping the event conceptually challenging and fulfilling. I completely agree with chalker's rationale for using binders - a lot of my courses in college are structured the same way - and I think that if the events' tests are written well, it can make it a pretty good experience for everyone. Not every event should have a binder, but I think physics events/Astronomy having them is the least of Science Olympiad's problems.

I agree, but is there that much of a difference between the difficulty of physics events and bio,earth and chem events(Note:I don't do physics)? By this reasoning, many of the other events should get binders too. Road Scholar, on the other hand, requires few pages in a binder(according to my teammates), which could definitely fit on a cheatsheet.

I honestly think more events having binders would be awesome, but in any case, I don't see it as a huge concern

[AlfWeg]

I believe that the only events which should get binders are the ID events.
If the bio,earth,and chem events get cheatsheets, why do physics events get binders? They can always remove history from the events.
And road definitely shouldn't get a binder/box/whatever.

I'm not sure about this. I think Astronomy is does a great job of incorporating a binder into the event (and goes even further to let competitors use a computer) while keeping the event conceptually challenging and fulfilling. I completely agree with chalker's rationale for using binders - a lot of my courses in college are structured the same way - and I think that if the events' tests are written well, it can make it a pretty good experience for everyone. Not every event should have a binder, but I think physics events/Astronomy having them is the least of Science Olympiad's problems.

I agree, but is there that much of a difference between the difficulty of physics events and bio,earth and chem events(Note:I don't do physics)? By this reasoning, many of the other events should get binders too. Road Scholar, on the other hand, requires few pages in a binder(according to my teammates), which could definitely fit on a cheatsheet.

Yeah, physics events do need the binder cuz of history(bunch of pointless facts about scientists, important inventions, etc...). Earth science events don’t need a binder because they don’t need the same kind of history. Also I feel there are more formulas in physics event.