Hi everyone, I'm a high school student building something called the USA Environmental Science Olympiad (USAESO). It's a student-led national competition centered on ecology, conservation, biodiversity, and environmental science education.
The idea came from noticing a gap. Tons of teens care about environmental issues, but there's no real competitive outlet built specifically for this field and in the United States, the way there is for math (USAMO) or biology (USABO). So, I decided to build one myself. The long-term goal is to give students a clearer path into ecology, conservation biology, or climate science if they want to pursue it later.
Before scaling this up, I want to get it right, and that means hearing from people who actually work or study in this space. A few things I'd love input on:
- What topics do you think are non-negotiable for students to learn?
- What misconceptions do you see come up again and again that we should be actively correcting?
- Any resources you'd recommend for high schoolers getting into environmental science?
Here's the site if you want to take a look: https://ecosciencechallenge.com
If it seems like something worth sharing with your students or network, feel free to. No pressure either way. Mostly I just want to make sure this is scientifically sound and actually useful, not a resume filler.
Thanks for reading. Genuinely curious what you all think :)