On Friday September 30, the Faculty of Science Students’ Association (FOSSA) hosted their second annual Science Olympics on alumni field.
Due to careful and creative organization done by FOSSA vice-president of student events, Katia McDougall, along with the hard work from the other dedicated student volunteers under FOSSA, the event was a huge success.
The event featured a variety of snacks including a tent full of fruit, pizza, hot chocolate, pop and by far the most popular, a truck giving away free ice cream parked beside the field.
The teams were all brightly colour coded with green, red, blue and yellow t-shirts to identify themselves.
“So basically everybody that signs up gets placed on a team based on their program … they get to know people throughout other programs that will help them later in the year with midterms and finals,” said McDougall.
All of the participants competed in activities such as bubble soccer, elaborate obstacle course competitions, a chaotic scavenger hunt across campus and a trust exercise called Landmine, with students using the knowledge learned in their program.
“At each event, once they complete a task, they answer based on what type of event they are at. So there’s ‘Heath Science Bubble Soccer,’ so every time they score a goal, they would be asked a health science related question,” said McDougall.
The idea of building a community, within the individual science programs as well as the faculty as a whole, was largely felt throughout the activities.
McDougall described the Science Olympics primarily as a way, “to show [students] that the faculty of science is a really fun environment and it’s a good community to be a part of.”
According to McDougall, the aim of the event was to give students a greater knowledge of health science or math facts as well as make new friends and have a great experience.
“I hope that they continue to go to more FOSSA events throughout the year when it comes to more serious stuff like Career Night,” said McDougall.
The events required significant amounts of communication and teamwork in order to be successful.
This was shown even between events, when participants wearing multicolored shirts could be found sitting in close intimate circles eating ice cream and chatting amongst themselves.
At the end of the day, the green team emerged victorious in the Olympics.
“[The goal was] to have more of a community feel, being in first-year science and to publicize that science rules,” said McDougall.