Tom Tolen / news@whmi.com

Brighton High School's Science Olympiad teams competed in their first meet of the season at the Hawk/Hornet Invitational in Saline last weekend.

Some 56 teams from across Michigan and several teams from Ohio participated. Eight of the top ten Michigan teams from last year were at the tournament, which was “extremely competitive,” in the words of Brighton Science Olympiad Coach Shannan Pereira.

Brighton’s varsity team took 12th overall, whereas the JV-A team placed 32nd while not competing in all events. The JV-B team from Brighton took a small group and did not compete in many of the events due to the size of the team, with severaal students competing alone.

The Brighton varsity team received a medal for finishing third in Microbe Mission. The team also took home ribbons for finishing fifth in Tower, Entomology and Write It, Do It. Finally, the varsity team garnered a ribbon by taking seventh in Experimental Design.

Science Olympiad is an American team competition in which students take part in 23 events pertaining to various fields of science, including earth science, biology, chemistry, physics and engineering. Over 7,800 middle and high school teams from all 50 states participate each year. Several international teams also compete in Science Olympiad tournaments in the US.