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In 2021, a Colorado Springs-based STEM team comprised entirely of gifted homeschool students defeated multiple larger teams from brick-and-mortar schools to win both the high school and middle school divisions of the state’s Science Olympiad tournament.
It was the first state title for Homeschool Science Colorado, which had spent years getting close to the top, but never quite making it.
Four years later, the hunters have become the hunted.
Earlier this month, Homeschool Science Colorado’s high school won the statewide competition for the fourth time in five years, including a three-peat in 2023, 2024 and 2025. Its middle school team won the state title for the first time since 2021.
Head coach Cindy Puhek understands that her team is no longer the scrappy underdog.
“Everybody’s aiming for us, and we know it,” said head coach Cindy Puhek. “You start to feel the pressure. So part of my job as coach now is to manage expectations and pressures that come with being on top.”
Puhek said she is especially happy for her middle school team, which won the state Olympiad for the first time since 2021.
“Our middle school team has never beaten the competition up north, except during the virtual tournament, which gave us a bit of an advantage being homeschoolers,” she said. “To win in a normal competition is a big deal for them.”
Established in 1984, the Science Olympiad applies science-based principles and techniques to competitive events, infusing the event with a sporting atmosphere. It’s an Olympics of the mind, where problem solving and critical thinking replace running, jumping and throwing.
The contest holds 46 events – 23 per division – that run the gamut of scientific disciplines, including astronomy, chemistry, engineering and more.
The national and state tournaments were canceled in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The following year, the competition’s developers created a virtual platform that allowed competitors to participate from their homes.
Some teams from brick-and-mortar school struggled with the virtual format, but it played to HSSC’s strengths.
“As a team of homeschoolers, it was an advantage for us,” said Puhek, who has homeschooled all of her six children. “We’re used to working this way. We’re used to turning our kitchen into a lab, or marking out a competition track in our garage. It was more foreign to them.”
In 2022, the competition returned to an in-person format, with the state Olympiad held at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. HSSC had lost its built-in advantage , but they still managed to place second. Since then, it’s been all first-place finishes.
“I tell my kids, ‘Victory is the icing, but not the cake,” Puhek said. “The ‘cake’ is the learning, the skills the kids develop, and the relationships the build. Those are the things we come away with whether we actually come out on top or not.”
In recent years, Puhek’s family has served as a kind of feeder system for the team. Four of her six children have participated in the Science Olympiad.
“I got involved with Science Olympiad for my third child, Hudson,” she said. “Now all his younger siblings have done it, including my youngest, who is 11.”
The benefits of the competition go far beyond trophies and medals, Puhek said. When her son, Hudson, first started, he was a talented but aimless youngster. Now, he’s a sophomore aerospace engineering major at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs with a 4.0 GPA.
“This program really helped him figure out who he is,” Puhek said. “I suspect it does that for a lot of kids.”
For homeschoolers, Science Olympiad helps offers the chance to work as part of a team, something they don’t always get in a home setting.
“The experiences that they’re getting through Science Olympiad are incredibly valuable,” Puhek said. “They get to work with others, they learn how to assess someone else’s skills and how to maximize those skills within a partnership.”
Some HSSC competitors are students who don’t necessarily do well in a traditional classroom atmosphere, Puhek said. Over the years, she has coached several neurodiverse kids with a variety of conditions, including ADHD, autism and dyslexia.
“That brings some challenges, especially socially, but they are excellent Science Olympiad competitors,” she said.
In May, Homeschool Science Colorado’s middle- and high school teams will travel to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, where they will face off against some of the country’s best young STEM minds in the U.S. in the national Science Olympiad. For a team as small as HSSC, medaling in the national tournament is rare. But they’ve done it before.
“We have excellent kids on our team who work really hard,” Puhek said. “We always have a chance.”
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