Another year, another successful You Be the Chemist Challenge! But while it may have been nothing out of the ordinary for a number of Monument Brandenburg, KY team members to be working hard both behind the scenes and on stage at the Chemical Education Foundation’s (CEF) regional competition, this year’s theme was an easy one: The 20th Anniversary Event! 

On February 28, Meade County College and Career Center was filled with students and teachers from local middle schools, as well as judges and moderators from the Monument team. The event marked a 20-year milestone of advancing the mission of fostering a greater understanding of the science and value of chemistry through a fun, challenging academic competition.

This year, teams consisting of qualifying students in 5th - 8th grade from Bluegrass Middle School and Stuart Pepper Middle School battled it out by answering 40 advanced questions from a wide range of Chemistry competencies. “The questions were designed to not only challenge their knowledge and application of the material, but also their ability to work as a cohesive unit under a ticking clock,” Alexandra Bledsoe, Lead Production Engineer, explained. “Because when it comes down to it, practicing the soft skill of working together as a team might be more useful than the actual chemistry content itself!”  

In order to qualify, students were given a traditional study guide and interactive study tools to prepare for a qualifying exam, in which they had to score within a certain range to compete.

“Since a lot of the materials are more advanced than their grade level’s school work, the CEF makes sure the students have what they need to prepare,” Lauren Hamilton, Quality Engineer at Monument, explained. “Between the two schools participating, we had enough students for seven teams, who during the event would collaborate to answer a variety of questions from balancing chemical equations to identifying components within an example experiment. It’s certainly a test of their knowledge!”

The event’s location at the career center presented a more open and productive environment for the participants to collaborate, while a virtual challenge option allowed more students to get involved. When all answers had been submitted, the moderator, Monument’s own Noah Frazier, Production Engineer, announced the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners who all received medals and a chance to submit a video entry on the theme of “It’s All Chemistry: Solving the Problems of Tomorrow Using the Fundamentals of Forces and Interactions” to qualify to compete at the National level. The top 5 from each state will advance.

“Monument has sponsored You Be the Chemist for the last 15 years, and it’s always so fun for us to get involved in the event,” Lauren shared. “This year, we had Noah moderating, Tom Parcell, Operations Manager, as a judge alongside Alexandra and myself. This challenge is such a great avenue for us to show our support of STEM in our local community and to fulfill our on-going commitment to getting involved and giving back in more meaningful ways. We’re grateful for another inspiring year — here’s to the next 20!”