This February 27, 2025 UBC media advisory arrived in my email (it can also be viewed online here), Note: There is no mention of the public being invited; so, you might want to file this information in the ‘interesting’ category,
More than 1,000 high school students and teachers from across B.C. will
meet at UBC on Saturday for the 47th annual UBC Physics Olympics, where
they will show off their physics expertise and experimental design
skills.Teams of students will compete in six events that test hands-on skills and scientific concepts including:
- Testing light boxes and solar-powered boats that the students have previously assembled
- Mini golf and buoyancy labs
- “Quizzics,” a quiz show
- Fermi questions, inspired by the great 20th-century physicist Enrico Fermi, where students try to answer order-of-magnitude questions, such as “What is the total mass of the students competing in the Physics Olympics today?”
The Olympics aim to help students see how physics is exciting and
relevant to their daily lives and to provide an opportunity to work
together.The UBC Physics Olympics is one of the largest and oldest high school
physics competitions in North America. The event is organized by
students and professors in the department of physics and astronomy and
department of curriculum and pedagogy. UBC undergraduate students, many
of them Physics Olympics alumni, volunteer their time.Event: 47th annual UBC Physics Olympics
Date/Time: Saturday, March 1, [2025] labs from 9 a.m.-3:30 p.m., awards from
4:30 p.m.
You can find the UBC Physics Olympics website here. This site is a little confusing. Ignore the “Teacher’s Workshop” section as it lists something from November 2024. There is a March 1, 2025 workshop for teachers listed in the sidebar with a working link to all of the 2025 UBC Physics events including: “AI-Powered K-12 Physics Education” is your workshop this year! Check it out: https://physoly.phas.ubc.ca/schedule/.”
There will also be an international event held later this year, from the online media advisory here
Looking for something else?
*Looking for information about the International Physics Olympiad? The International Physics Olympiad (IPhO) is the World Championship Physics Competition for High School students and is held annually in different countries. For the official IPhO website, please see here. Our National student team to represent Canada for 2025 will be selected from top placements in the annual Canadian Association of Physicists (CAP) High School Prize Exam. For more information, please see the Canadian Physics Olympiad program page here.
Btw, the 55th International Physics Olympiad (IPhO 2025) is being held in Paris, France from July 17 – 25, 2025.
Lastly, I see that TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator centre located on the UBC Vancouver campus, has a redesigned website.