Dean of Faculty Serves as Judge for Science Challenge

Rachel Stone, dean of faculty, served as a guest judge at the third Think Like an Epidemiologist Challenge (Epi Challenge) event at the finals of the New Jersey Science Olympiad, College Center, Middlesex County College, Edison, N.J., on March 15. Sixteen teams competed in the finals. Rachel, who teaches a year-long junior/senior elective in epidemiology, notes that Blair Academy is one of the only U.S. high schools to offer a full-year course in this subject.

The Web site for this event (http://www.njscienceolympiad.org) explains the concept: “The Epi Challenge asked teams of four students each to test a hypothesis epidemiologically. This Science Olympiad (SO) event was designed to be realistic and requires students to ‘do’ epidemiology so that they experience some of the challenges that epidemiologists face when testing hypotheses in the real world. It requires students to develop and use a variety of epidemiologic skills efficiently and effectively. It requires them to use judgment and innovation.”

Rachel and the other guest judges asked the following questions of themselves and the contest participants as they made their decisions that day:

PRESENTATION

1. How would you rate the brief oral poster presentation made by the student?
2. How would you rate the physical presentation of the poster?

THE SCIENCE

3. How well do you think your study design and methods test your hypothesis?
4. How did you analyze your data?
5. What can your data tell you about your hypothesis?
6. What can’t your data tell you about your hypothesis?
7. What were the limitations of your study?
8. If you were going to test your hypothesis again, how could you address those limitations?

COLLABORATION AND GROUP WORK

9. How well did ALL members of the team demonstrate the ability to respond to your questions?

Updated 3/16/11

> Read About More Academic News

return to top