The 40th annual UBC Physics Olympics event was held at UBC’s Vancouver campus on Saturday, March 11, 2018. Co-hosted by the Department of Curriculum and Pedagogy in the Faculty of Education, and the Department of Physics and Astronomy in the Faculty of Science, the event was a great success, with a record number of teams and students attending from all over BC: 73 teams and 721 students. Congratulations to the winning team from Penticton Secondary School, whose teacher, Bruce Gowe, is a former UBC graduate.
In addition, Dr. Marina Bolotin-Milner facilitated a professional development event for teachers that featured presentations by two very successful BC teachers, Mrs. Giselle Lawrence and Mr. Pouyan Khalili.The event focused on new British Columbia science curriculum and on different ways of facilitating inquiry in a science classroom.
A brief numeric overview of the 2018 event:
Infinity – The number of laughs and the level of excitement
1352 km – The distance from Terrace to Vancouver (the most remote school attending the event)
722 – Number of students attending the 40th UBC Physics Olympics
365 – Number of days we spent planning the event since the last year
108 – Number of medals awarded to top teams
82 – Number of team leaders (teachers and coaches) supporting the students
73 – Number of teams in attendance
71 – Number of volunteers supporting the event (faculty, graduate and undergraduate students)
40 – Number of UBC Physics Olympics we have organized so far
39 – The size of the largest team in attendance
35 – Number of physics teachers who participated in the Professional Development event
10 – Number of times Penticton Secondary School has won the overall event since 1977
6 – Number of heats (independent events during the day)
6 – Number of plaques awarded to the schools
2 – Number of pre-build events the students had prepared at home
2 – Number of large auditoriums we had to use to seat all the participants, coaches and volunteers for the final event.
1 – Number of Officers of the Order of Canada who facilitated our events (Dr. J. Matthews)
1 – The overall Physics Olympics Trophy
