IJSO
The syllabus of the International Junior Science Olympiad (IJSO) lists the skills and areas of knowledge the participants should be familiar with for this competition.
It thus serves as a guideline for developing tasks to the Scientific Committees of the hosting countries but should also help the leaders of the participating countries to effectively train their students for this competition.
In order to keep the syllabus up to date it should be revalidated every three years and if necessary shortened or expanded.
Structure and content of the syllabus
The International Junior Science Olympiad is a general science competition. The IJSO syllabus is therefore not strictly divided into the disciplines biology, chemistry and physics but rather intends to highlight basic general concepts in science.
This conceptual approach is also meant to encourage the development of problems of interdisciplinary content and relevance.
The content of the syllabus is based on
- The former syllabus of the IJSO.
- The syllabi for students up to 15 years of age in the participating countries.
- The problems given at the IJSO until the 5th IJSO in 2008.
Omissions and additions were made if considered suitable.
- Particles, waves and matter
- What things are made of
- Structure of particles and atoms
- Elements, isotopes and compounds
- Composition of molecules, chemical substances
- Mixtures, colloids and suspensions
- Periodic table Periodic table – concept, organization and structure
- States of matter and its properties
- Solids, liquids, gases and plasmas – characteristics and differences
- Lattices as a special form of solid matter
- Properties of matter
- Phase transitions and their influence on the properties of matter
- Water and its different phases
- Waves
- Frequency, wavelength, speed of propagation and its relation
- Difference between transversal and longitudinal waves
- Superposition of waves
- Classical Doppler effect
- Sound
- Light
- Wave and particle interpretation of light
- Propagation and speed of light in vacuum and media, refractive index
- Connection between wavelength and colour, electromagnetic spectrum
- Reflection and refraction of light at mirrors and lens.
- Formation of images with mirrors and lenses
- Energy
- Nature of energy and energy conservation
- Various forms of energy
- Transfer of energy
- Energy conversion / transformation and its efficiency
- Sources of energy
- Power
- Interactions
Forces
- Nature of forces and types of forces
- Mass and weight, center of mass
- Newton’s laws, inertial systems
- kinematics of a point mass: linear and circular motion
- Momentum and change of momentum
- Levers
- Elastic forces, Hooke’s law and harmonic motions
- Pressure
- Electric, magnetic and gravitational fields
Type of chemical bonding – nature, structure and strength
Chemical Reactions
- Chemical equations – balancing and stoichiometry
- Types of chemical reactions
- Basic and most common reactions for determination of unknown substances
- Rate of reactions, factors affecting reaction rate like catalysts, temperature and
- concentration
- Dynamic equilibrium and Le Chatelier’s principle
- Common ion effect
- Diffusion, osmosis and surface tension
- Principle of thin layer and paper chromatography
- Effects of radiation on organisms
- Forms of communication
- Structure, properties and functions
The students should know the structure of the following components and understand in which way they fulfil their functions
- Cells
- Basic structure of cells and its constituents
- differences between animal, plant cells and bacteria
- Basic concepts of the biochemistry of molecules.
- Parts of the body
- Anatomy and function of main organs and tissues in animals and humans
- Properties of muscles
- Homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts
- Acids and bases
- Properties of acids and bases
- pH values and neutralization
- Indicators
- Formation and effect of acidic rain
- Electrolysis
- Systems
The students should be able to employ the concepts of:
Continuity principles in closed systems/cycles
Scales of nature
Basic concepts about cycles in nature
Ecology
- Levels of organization in the biosphere
- Factors affecting ecosystems (abiotic and biotic)
- Interactions between organisms
- Producers, consumers and decomposers
- Food chains, food webs
- Basic principles of conservation of biodiversity
- Factors affecting growth of populations, typical growth-curves for populations
- Pollution effects of different modes of power generation
- Organisms as systems
- Transformation of matter and energy in organisms
- Basic knowledge of digestive, circulatory, respiratory, excretory, nervous, immune and endocrine systems
- Plant physiology
- Respiration and exchange of gases
- Absorption by roots, diffusion, osmosis
- Photosynthesis
- Tropism of plants
- Electric Circuits
- Components of circuits
- Ohm’s law, charge, current, voltage
- Series and parallel circuits, Kirchhoff’s laws
- Difference between AC and DC currents/voltages
- Qualitative knowledge of electromagnetic induction and Lenz’s law
- Basic principles of generators and motors
- Thermodynamical system
- Astrophysical systems
- Development and Evolution
- Strategies of environmental adaptation
- Theory of evolution
- Cell cycle and cell division
- Reproduction in humans, animals and plants
- principles of creation of new life
- human reproductive organs and sex cells
- changes that take place in boy’s and girl’s bodies during puberty
- basic principles of plant reproduction (asexual and sexual)
- basic knowledge of the development of fetus during pregnancy
- Genes, chromosomes and genetics
- Diseases
- cause and transmission of diseases
- immune systems
- principles of vaccination
- antibiotics such as the penicillin group
- Mathematics skills
- equations involving
- fractions
- logarithms and exponential functions
- powers and roots
- polynomials (e.g. solving quadratic equations)
- trigonometric functions
- transformations of equations to obtain linear relations
- plots of functions
- simple geometry
- basic vector algebra (decomposition and addition of vectors)
- simple statistics (mean values, standard deviations, basic notion of probabilities)
- error estimation
- rounding of numbers and representing data with the proper number of digits /significant figures
- Laboratory Skills
They should in particular be able to
- work in the laboratory following safety regulations
- employ basic techniques for measuring the quantities mentioned in part B
- make observations using the five senses
- identify and use basic laboratory equipment
- use more sophisticated equipment if proper instructions are given
- collect data from an experiment being aware that instruments affect measurements
- identify error sources and estimate their effects
