Middle School students are really getting into their Bunsen burners, vials and other science paraphernalia.

Riding the success of last year’s RCS Middle School Science Olympiad team which placed first in a regional competition, nearly twice as many middle school students this year joined the school’s Science Olympiad Club. As a result, club advisor and science teacher Jen Fisk has decided to field two competition teams this spring.

“There’s been a real strong interest this year – which is great,” Fisk said.

Approximately 30 sixth, seventh, eighth grade and ninth RCS students are taking part in the Science Olympiad this year, up from 18 last year.

The idea behind the Science Olympiad is to utilize the “very rigorous competition” to develop team work, group planning and science skills among students, Fisk said. Most importantly, the Olympiad fosters an interest in science among students that will only grow as the student advances.

RCS Middle School will once again host hundreds of students from around the Capital Region on March 1 in the regional Science Olympiad competition. The students will compete in 19 different events with titles that range from trajectory – where students must use elastic as energy to launch a hollow ball at a sand covered platform - to the scrambler in which students have to design a car to run on a track with an egg attached to its bumper and stop just before it crashes into a wall.

In preparation for the event, the RCS Middle School students are meeting after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays until 5 p.m. to hone their skills, Fisk said.

School Superintendent Vicki Wright said nurturing an interest in science among middle school students is “crucial at this time when the demand for science-minded professionals is skyrocketing – especially in a region that wants to be known as ‘Tech Valley’.”