Division  

South Carolina Science Olympiad is excited to host a Division B state tournament for the fortieth time since 1986! The Division B competition is open to teams of up to fifteen students ranging from sixth to ninth grade, with no more than five ninth graders on each team. We will host all 23 national events at the State Tournament, descriptions of which can be found below.

2026 SCSO Division B Event Slate

All event descriptions were taken from and can be found on the Science Olympiad, Inc., rules, linked below. This webpage also has learning and competition resources for each event! Events marked with an asterisk are shared with Division C and events highlighted in sky blue are new for the 2026 season.

The Science Olympiad rules manual is now available here courtesy of the national office!

Life, Personal and Social Science

• Anatomy and Physiology - Participants will be assessed on their understanding of the anatomy and physiology for the nervous, special senses, and endocrine systems of the human body.

• Disease Detectives - Participants will use their investigative skills in the scientific study of disease, injury, health, and disability in populations or groups of people.

• Entomology - Students will be asked to identify insects and selected immature insects by indicated taxonomy order and family, answer questions about insects, and use or construct a dichotomous key. All insects will be representatives of insects found in North America, north of Mexico.

• Heredity - Teams will answer questions, solve problems, and analyze data pertaining to classic and molecular genetics.

• Water Quality - Participants will be assessed on their understanding and evaluation of freshwater aquatic environments.

Earth and Space Science

• Dynamic Planet - Teams will complete tasks related to physical and geological oceanography.

• Meteorology - Participants will use scientific process skills involving qualitative and quantitative analyses to demonstrate an understanding of the factors that influence everyday weather through the interpretation of meteorological data, graphs, charts, and images.

• Remote Sensing - Participants will demonstrate an understanding of the basic principles of remote sensing and use imagery, data, and maps to complete tasks related to Earth systems processes. An understanding of mapping principles is a component of this event.

• Rocks and Minerals - Teams will identify and classify rocks and minerals and demonstrate knowledge of how rocks and minerals help to understand geologic processes, interpretation of Earth’s history, the development of natural resources, and use by society.

• Solar System - Participants will demonstrate their knowledge of planet formation and structure within and beyond the Solar System.

Physical Science and Chemistry

• Circuit Lab - Participants must complete tasks and answer questions about electricity and magnetism.

• Crime Busters - Given a scenario, a collection of evidence, and possible suspects, students will perform a series of tests. Test results, along with other evidence, will be used to solve a crime and answer questions.

• Hovercraft - Prior to the competition, participants will design, construct, and calibrate a self-propelled air-levitated vehicle that moves down a track.

• Machines - Teams will compete a written test on simple and compound machine concepts and construct a lever-based measuring device prior to the tournament to determine the mass ratios between three test masses.

• Potions and Poisons - This event is about chemical properties and effects of specified toxic and therapeutic chemical substances, with a focus on household and environmental toxins or poisons.

Technology and Engineering

• Boomilever - Teams will design and build a cantilevered beam or truss structure that extends from a vertical testing wall and supports a load at a specified distance from the testing wall. The structure must meet the requirements specified in the rules to achieve the highest score, which is a combination of structural efficiency and load scored bonus.

• Helicopter - Prior to the tournament, teams will construct, collect data on test flights, analyze and optimize free flight rubber-powered helicopters to achieve maximum time aloft.

• Mission Possible - Prior to the competition, participants design, build, test, and document a Rube Goldberg-like device that completes required start and final actions through a series of specific actions.

• Scrambler - Teams design, build, and test a mechanical device, which uses the energy from a falling mass to transport an egg along a track as quickly as possible and stop as close to the center of a terminal barrier without breaking the egg.

Inquiry and Nature of Science

• Codebusters - Teams will cryptanalyze and decode encrypted messages using cryptanalysis techniques for historical and modern advanced ciphers.

• Experimental Design - This event will determine the participant’s ability to design, conduct, and report the findings of an experiment entirely on-site.

• Metric Mastery - Teams will estimate and then measure properties of identical objects, including mass, area, volume, density, force, distance, time, and temperature. Teams will also perform metric unit conversions.

• Write It Do It - One participant will write a description of an object and how to build it. The other participant will attempt to construct the object from this description.