Design of a student-led organizational partnership to host an annual statewide Science Olympiad K-12 outreach tournament

Since fall 2015, the University of Virginia’s (UVA) Engineering Student Council (ESC) has partnered with the nonprofit Virginia Science Olympiad (VASO) organization to host a Science Olympiad (SciOly) state tournament in Charlottesville, Virginia, each spring. This annual tournament brings over 2,000 middle and high school students, teachers, and parents to the UVA campus, and teams of 15–17 people from roughly 90 schools across Virginia participate in 46 different events (23 middle school, Division B; 23 high school, Division C) relating to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields throughout the day-long competition. The national SciOly organization sets the events and rules to comply with national education standards, and the VASO board coordinates the teams and tournaments within the state. By collaborating with VASO, UVA ESC was able to plan a large-scale SciOly tournament at UVA in approximately 10 mo with the support of the UVA School of Engineering and Applied Science. Since this event was planned and executed solely by undergraduates in cooperation with the nonprofit organization, there were institutional hurdles that were overcome through the months of planning. The Virginia SciOly state tournament has continued to be held at UVA with the support and cooperation of the UVA ESC and VASO, and bringing this tournament to UVA has allowed for increased excitement for participating K–12 students and a mitigated burden to the VASO organizers in planning the state competition. This paper aims to provide a resource for other universities to support STEM activities in K–12 outreach organizations, like SciOly, in the future.