Wayland Union Schools has been awarded a competitive grant of $800 by the State of Michigan for its Science Olympiad program.

The Fiscal Year 2015 State Aid Act set aside $250,000 for the 2015-16 school year for competitive grants to districts that provide pupils in grades K-12 with expanded opportunities in science education and skills by participating in events and competitions hosted by Science Olympiad.

Wayland Union Schools currently has a team at the high school and is coached by science teachers Karen Gabrielse and Lynn Gosson.

The Science Olympiad team consists of 15 Wayland High School students who will compete in an all-day contest Feb. 27 at Western Michigan University in the Region 10 Competition. The competition consists of 23 different STEM-based events in which the students will compete against other teams in the same region.

The events are of three types: Pre-build machines that must accomplish a specific task; laboratory events in which the students must apply scientific and engineering principles towards a specific task or investigation; and written tests in which the students must demonstrate a high level of content knowledge in specific topics.

Students have been working toward preparing for these events for the past month by learning specific content knowledge, honing laboratory skills, or building and testing their machines.