Science Olympiad Coaching Program (SOCP)

Basics

About

The Science Olympiad Coaching Program (SOCP) connects volunteers with middle school students to prepare them for Science Olympiad—a track-meet style academic competition.

You take the official rule book’s “learning goals” and turn them into your own hands-on curriculum, mentoring students to explore open-ended STEM challenges and compete with confidence.

Why Coach?

As a coach, you will experience the joy of helping students master difficult content and find satisfaction from making a creative lesson for a subject you are interested in. You will also develop mastery of soft skills like how to communicate, be organized, and manage a small group of individuals.

You can choose to coach an event independently or team up with a partner to have a fun, collaborative experience with a friend.

If you are not available to coach, please let others know! We prefer UCR students because they have the potential of coaching in-person, but are open to non-UCR volunteers as long as they are 18+.

Requirements

You will not need prior Science Olympiad or teaching experience.

You will be expected to commit at least 1 hr/week to developing a curriculum, and at least 1 hr/week to coaching students.

Some events can be taught fully online via Google Meet. Other events will require you to coach in-person as often as possible at Riverside STEM Academy (4466 Mt Vernon Ave, Riverside, CA). Requirements for each event will be labeled on the interest form.

We are flexible with circumstances requiring online coaching or absences, including (1) not being back at UCR by the coaching date and (2) sickness, vacations, prior commitments, emergencies, etc. We just require you to communicate with jzonker@riversideunified.org AND nvu042@ucr.edu.

We don’t have funding for transportation support. However, we ask coaches to let us know if they can give rides, and we will arrange these coaches so they can best help transport other coaches.

Schedule

Main Dates

Start Date: Sept 21–25, 2026 (Revised from 9/14 to accommodate student scheduling)
Competitions:
- UCR Highlander Invitational: January 2027
- Inland Empire Regional: March 2027
End Date: March 12, 2027 (UCR Winter Week 10)

Sample Schedule

View Sample Schedule Spreadsheet

You can make a copy of this document to: (1) know what events like holidays are coming up, and (2) pace your lessons.

Resources

Want to learn more about the events before choosing which to coach? Use these resources:

Signing Up

Sign Up

We accept applications on a rolling basis with no hard deadlines—we are always looking for coaches!

Interest Form

Contact

If you have any questions or concerns, please email:

Nam Vu
Director, Science Olympiad Coaching Program (2024-26)
nvu042@ucr.edu