The Fayetteville-Manlius High School Science Olympiad team placed 10th in the nation in competition today. The team of 15 students competed against 120 teams from around the nation who faced off in 46 categories at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "The kids did very well,'' said Jamie Cucinotta, the team's advisor. "It's become a very, very competitive event....
Catherine Hrbac (left) and Xiyu Wang, both juniors at Fayetteville-Manlius High School, practice an experiment identifying unknown powders by the way they react chemically. The two are part of the school's Science Olympiad team that competed today.
The Fayetteville-Manlius High School Science Olympiad team placed 10th in the nation in competition today.
The team of 15 students competed against 120 teams from around the nation who faced off in 46 categories at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
"The kids did very well,'' said Jamie Cucinotta, the team's advisor. "It's become a very, very competitive event. We have a lot of young kids on our team, and our goal was to be in the top 10 and we made it. We are very pleased,'' she said.
The team of 15 students has six sophomores.
A team from Eagle Hill Middle School placed 13th after competing in the middle-school nationals at the same time. This is their fourth visit to the nationals in five years.
This is the 12th time the F-M High School team made it to nationals. The team placed fifth at nationals last year.
Cucinotta said three F-M high school students on the team won full four-year scholarships to the University of Illinois after winning gold medals in their events. The students are Elliott Tan, John Roberts and Eric Rosenthal.
"That makes being here worth it right there,'' Cucinotta said.