Despite often being at a disadvantage, the Science Team has performed well at the at the Illinois Science Olympiad and the Worldwide Youth in Science and Engineering Program invitationals they have attended, and members are resolved to keep improving.

At the Huntley High School ISO invitational on Feb. 9, the team placed fourth. At the ISO invitational at the University of Chicago Jan. 12, the team placed 15th of 43, while at the Harlem High School ISO Invitational Dec. 8, the varsity team placed first in 11 of 23 categories.

On Feb. 6, at the Fenwick High School WYSE regionals invitational, the team placed first overall.

Seamus Flannery, a senior who competes at both ISO and WYSE invitationals, was proud of his teammates and hopeful regarding future competitions.

“I think people are putting a lot of continued effort into their events, which is great to see,” Seamus said.

The team is often at a disadvantage in competition because they allocate less time and resources than other schools.

“A big hurdle we have to overcome to get to levels like state and nationals is that a lot of the schools that reached state have ISO as a class, where they spend an hour a day and get graded and have homework,” Seamus said. “None of us can spend nearly that amount of time on our work.”

U-High also has a smaller student body and allocates members to two other competitions: the Envirothon and TEAMS.

The team will compete at the TEAMS IIT event March 8, the regional levels of ISO at Harper College on March 9, the Envirothon regionals April 10 and, if they qualify, the state level of ISO April 13 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Parts of this story were cut for space in issue U-High Midway 95.6.