Welcome to the 2025 Gopher Invitational! We will be hosting an online satellite tournament 2/9 - 2/15 in 2025.Announcements- Payment deadline has been moved back to Feb. 5th. (1/11/25)
- Tests will include state and national topics where applicable. (1/7/25)
- Cap on number of teams per school has been removed. (1/7/25)
In the past, we have hosted in-person and online Division B invitationals for Minnesota teams. This year, Gopher Science Olympiad is looking to switch things up: we will be running our first ever Division C tournament! Being the only Div. C invitational in the state, we hope to provide Minnesota SO teams a valuable opportunity to compete in a tournament setting before the state competition. Because of this large shift, we've opted to run this year's Gopher Invitational online via a satellite format, with plans to switch back to in-person in the near future. As a nice side effect, this allows teams from across the country to join in! Here's some details on the competition:
Events
Due to this being an online tournament, we have opted to not host build events. Below is a comprehensive list of all events being held. Tests will be taken through Scylimpiad via the "Student Login" tab. All the tests will be written and graded by us, so none of the schools need to provide volunteers for event supervising.
- Anatomy and Physiology
- Disease Detectives
- Ecology
- Entomology
- Astronomy
- Dynamic Planet
- Fossils
- Geologic Mapping
- Optics (test only)
- Wind Power (test only)
- Chem Lab (test only)
- Forensics (test only)
- Materials Science (test only)
- Codebusters
- Experimental Design
- Write It Do It
Awards
An awards ceremony will be held via Zoom after the tournament concludes and grading is completed. Teams will be notified when a date and time is finalized for this ceremony. Individual medals will be awarded to the top three finishers of each event, which will be mailed to teams after the awards ceremony.
Registration: Open through Jan. 31st
To offset the cost of awards and postage, there will be a $40 registration fee per team ($30 for MN teams). If this is a hardship for any team, please contact our tournament organizing committee at mnsoalum@umn.edu. Interested teams are asked to complete online registration by Jan. 31st, 2025. We will email you an invoice upon your registration. After this, please mail a check using the instructions provided in the invoice by February 5th, 2025. Minnesota Science Olympiad Alumni reserve the right to restrict registration based on available space. Admission will be based on a first-come, first-serve basis until a cap of 40 teams is reached, though additional space maybe be opened based on demand. Each school may register as many teams as they like.
Science Olympiad is nationwide competition. Students compete in 23 events that include earth science, biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering. Science Olympiad is designed to increase a student’s interest in STEM fields and provide recognition for outstanding achievement in team events. Students compete in Science Olympiad with the top teams advancing from Regional to State to National levels.