BioScience Olympiad for Secondary Schools NI

Description

At present, biological education in secondary schools makes biology a collection of facts and answering a question is usually limited to finding the right page in a textbook. The goal of the Bioscience Olympiad is to develop bioscience-oriented “academic thinking” and a creative approach to problem solving in school children. We aim to make the event not a contest of factual knowledge (with questions such as how many vertebras does a frog have or what is the name of an enzyme which cuts proteins) but one of intuitive and creative thinking. Answering the questions requires some basic textbook knowledge, but participants are invited to suggest as many "hypotheses" or "explanations" as they can, invent experiments to test their hypotheses and create a new classification of biological objects/processes (see Examples section). Participation in the Olympiad is free for any NI schools. Unlike many similar contests our Olympiad is not focused on “knowledge-testing,” but rather the provision of alternative waysstudents to understanding natural sciences for the students (see our Practical Tips section). Another main goal is career-guidance for talented and capable school children and improvement of the quality of their education.

Period	2010
Event title	BioScience Olympiad
Event type	Other
Location	Belfast, United Kingdom