Graphic by Abby Zheng
Andrea Tang | Josh Walensky
Features Reporter | Editor-in-Chief
Each year, countless high school students across the United States study for the United States Chemistry Olympiad exam, also known as the USNCO. At Newton South, the 2021 chemistry team has made history, both by being the first all-female chemistry team at South, as well as meeting together to prepare for the competition in an online setting.
The chemistry team at Newton South is a group of five students selected each year to compete in the Avery Ashdown exam for the Northeast region, where the students who receive the highest scores are able to qualify for the national exam.
To form the team at South, chemistry teachers Mr. Crosby, Mrs. Drurey, and Mrs. McChesney reached out to students in their classes who had a strong chemistry background.
“Every year, we gather students who plan to compete on the USNCO exam. In years past, they took a placement exam,” explained Ms. Drurey.
In order to gather members for the 2021 chemistry team, the teachers decided to purposefully target students who were underrepresented in the fields of science instead of holding a placement exam, to encourage their participation in a high-level competition.
“We wanted a more diverse group of students,” said Ms. McChesney. Predominantly in the past, the chemistry team had been composed of male students, and the chemistry teachers believed reaching out to more female students was the perfect opportunity to highlight their accomplishments in science.
“The teachers asked around about students who wanted to do it; personally, I got an email from Mr. Crosby asking me if I wanted to do it, and I said yes,” explained Eve Cohen, a junior on the chemistry team.
“It was pretty spontaneous. Once everyone confirmed that they would take part, we started our team meetings and went from there,” said junior Xantine Agar, another member of the team.
To prepare for the competition, team members studied online together, and also independently outside of their meetings. The team practiced using many resources, and worked together with the teachers through difficult previous exam questions.
“We were preparing for about a month, the time between when we first got the email that we were going to be in a group that was going to do the test, to when we actually took the test. We met for three or four Fridays in a row, during flex block, basically just to do review sessions for the quiz, to review the different units each time, specifically the units that they thought we were going to have trouble with,” said Cohen.
Teachers went over sections relating to topics such as acids and bases, equilibrium, and electrochemistry. Most of the studying took place in the study sessions, where each team member solved questions to practice.
“I studied exclusively off of the old exams, and so I just did one of those. Most of it was learning how to solve those types of problems,” continued Cohen. As a way to further their understanding, team members used their background knowledge from previous chemistry classes and dove deeper into topics to better prepare for the USNCO exam.
Adjusting to an online format, the team was able to come together and solve many problems for the notoriously difficult test. Cohen described, “It is a university-level test, so a lot of the work was done to prepare ourselves for the types of questions, not necessarily the content. I remember we spent in one meeting a decent amount of time going over a specific type of acid-base equilibrium problem to make sure that we knew how to solve it.”
With the support of each other, the chemistry team was able to adapt well to many circumstances. “At times it was definitely complicated trying to learn these difficult units online, but it worked nonetheless and was fun throughout,” said Agar.
As the first chemistry team at South composed only of female team members, each person found inspiration from their experiences working together. “I think it’s important that more girls feel comfortable getting involved in STEM-related activities, whether that be at school, in college, or beyond. It can start here. Genuinely, it was so cool to have a team of all girls,” reflected Cohen.
Following her positive experience on the chemistry team, Cohen encouraged any girls interested in joining the team to use their voice and reach out to teachers: “The all-female team was kind of remarkable to me, and I just hope that girls will actively seek that out in the future.”
