The Lake Ridge UIL Science team is the two time defending district champions and they are at it again!

With practices every Thursday, Lake Ridge High School’s UIL Science team is constantly working hard to succeed. The team competes against other schools in the state to see who has the best grasp on science. They are led by Chemistry teacher, Dr. Thatcher.

“I like being a part of this team because I’m competitive and also I think it’s great preparation for the kids for college. It looks great on college résumés,” said Dr. Thatcher.

For this team to succeed, much preparation has to be put in. With practices every Thursday, there are plenty of opportunities to learn what what they need to know before competition.

“We have weekly practices where we work of different topics and try to prepare for the test. A lot of it is experience. The more tests they take the better they do,” explained Thatcher.

Sophomore Beth Ruthford can be seen every Thursday after school learning and prepairing for competition.

“To get ready for competition we learn lessons on the board and since I’m a sophomore, I haven’t taken a lot of the AP science classes that are on the test so we review a lot of AP chemistry and other subjects as well as go over things we might not cover in our day to day science classes,” explained Ruthford.

Although a lot of work is done in order to reach their goals it all pays off in one way or another. For senior, Kyla Fergason it helps her future as well as academically.

” It helps me academically because it helps me in science subjects to actually really remember the material. I enjoy competing because my goal is to become a doctor and it helps me really learn the material to be prepared for that,” said Fergason.

The UIL science team is constantly excelling in competitions and beating every competitor in the district.  However, some of the team feels like their efforts aren’t getting enough appreciation as extra curricular activities are.

“We would sometimes like a little more recognition. I think all the other UIL teams would. We love sports.  It’s great that the sports teams get recognized but we have also had a lot of really cool accomplishments and we would like that to be incorporated into Lake Ridge. We work really hard for what we do and we are pretty good. We have a lot of pride in ourselves and our team and we would love to have that recognition and credibility,” said Rutherford.

All the work and effort put into the UIL science team continues to pay off. With a competition coming up, the team hopes to leave the same impression they did last year.