Illinois Science Olympiad (ISO) is a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of science education, increasing student interest in a variety of science disciplines, and providing recognition for outstanding achievement in science education of students, teachers, and community coaches. The Illinois Science Olympiad program supports Illinois school districts, teachers, and parent participants through classroom activities, facilitating training workshops and encouraging intramural, district, regional, state and national tournaments.

ISO tournaments are rigorous academic interscholastic competitions that consist of a series of team events. Students on teams of 15, participate in 23 challenging and motivational events throughout the school year in preparation to showcase their knowledge and skills during competition. The events are designated by the National Science Olympiad committee and are balanced between those requiring content knowledge in various science specialties, scientific process skills, and the application of practiced knowledge and skills.

ISO has divided the state into ten regional competition sites. Participating schools send team(s) of 15 students to a local tournament site to compete in all 23 events on a Saturday in March. Each event is evaluated according to the scoring criteria that is published in the National rules manual. The student event team earning the highest scores in each event receives a medal according to their overall rank. The individual event rankings of all events are then combined to determine the overall score for the entire team. A predetermined number of teams from each regional advance to the State Tournament at the University of Illinois in April. The top 2 teams in both the middle school and high school divisions then represent Illinois at the National tournament.
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For more information about Science Olympiad, please visit the National Science Olympiad website at http://www.soinc.org/background.