March 18, 2025
Tom Tolen / news@whmi.com
The Brighton High School and Scranton Middle School Science Olympiad teams performed extremely well at the 2025 Science Olympiad Regionals, held this past weekend at East Lansing High School. They are coached by Shannan Pereira, an engineer and Brighton parent who has been the coach of the two groups for 12 years.
The Scranton group placed runner-up out of 18 schools, just behind Chippewa Middle School of Okemos. The BHS contingent was third at the varsity level out of 21 high schools, behind winner Okemos and 2nd place East Lansing. All 6th-place finishers on up to first place winners in individual events took home medals. Brighton also fielded two alternate teams at the high school level – nicknamed the “black” and “white” teams, and one alternate team at the middle school level – the “black” team.
The only other Livingston County area school which fielded a team was Hartland, with a cadre of high school competitors, which placed 10th.
After the meet, Pereira told WHMI, “I’m extremely proud of all of our kids,” adding, “They went above and beyond in the competition.”
Both the Brighton High and Scranton Middle Schools qualified for the state Science Olympiad tournament, to be held April 26th.
The groups competed in 23 events, including:
Air trajectory
Anatomy
Astronomy
Bungee Drop
Chem Lab
Codebusters
Disease Detectives
Dynamic Planet
Ecology
Electric Vehicle
Entomology
Experimental Design
Forensics
Fossils
Geologic Mapping
Helicopter
Material Science
Microbe Mission
Optics
Robot Tour
Tower
WIDI
Wind Power