This past spring, the Chemical Society of Washington welcomed over 140 local high school students into the official reboot of the Chemistry Olympiad competition. The co-coordinators (Lauren Ragle, Eva-Marie Rudler, and Savannah Shumaker) worked diligently to communicate with local high school teachers who already had students sign up for the annual competition. Later this year, we will be doing more open advertising to encourage young minds to get involved in this tradition.
The local section exam was available online or on paper. Some students were unable to take the exam during the regular school week, so CSW hosted them at the ACS national headquarters building. Once the local section competition was finished, we could only promote 17 of the top-scoring students on to the national-level exam. We will continue to advocate for the expansion of the 2-students per school limit and the potential expansion from 17 students from across our region.
We are eternally grateful for the wonderful faculty at Montgomery College (both Takoma Park and Rockville campuses), who hosted us for the national exam. This includes Laura Anna (department chair at Rockville), Valeria Lantz (department chair at Takoma Park), and Dwayne Henry (lab manager at Takoma Park). These faculty, along with current MC students, were beyond amazing to work with and encourage our high schoolers.
While we are waiting to hear about students moving on to the international portion of the Chemistry Olympiad, we are very proud of all of our students who competed – both on the local and national level. We know the future of science is in good hands with these wise young scientists!
Around mid-October, we will begin the call for local Chemistry Olympiad students for the 2026 exam – so keep an eye on your inbox! As a reminder: If you wanted a PDF or printed copy of your participation certificate, please notify Lauren Ragle ([email protected]).
