Norway

Department of Biosciences,

University of Oslo

Postbox 1066 Blindern

0316 Oslo

www.mn.uio.no/ibv/om/biologi-ol/

We collaborate with the other Olympiads (Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics and Informatics) to inform the high schools about the Olympiads. An email is sent out to the headmaster of each high school.

We also inform about Biology-OL through Social media and emails directly to biology-teachers.

Information is also available on our website and Facebook.

The Department of Biosciences at University of Oslo, is the main organizer of NBO. NBO consists of three rounds arranged on different dates through the school year.  The third and final round is held at the Department of Biosciences at the University of Oslo.

Dates:

1st round: The schools choose one day in week 40-42

2nd round: End of January

3rd round: week 12 or 13

All high school students in Norway may participate in the first round. The best 10% from round 1 will participate in round 2. The 16 best from round 2 will be invited to IBV for a 4 days training camp before the final round is held in the end of those days.

Statistics over the year

2017: 53 schools are participating, number of students participating 757.

2018: 71 schools are participating, number of students participating 1082.

2019: 71 schools are participating, number of students participating 990.

2020: 76 schools are participating, number of students participating 1052.

2021: 72 schools are participating, number of students participating 1102.

2022: 75 schools are participating, number of students participating 979.

2023: 95 schools are participating, number of students participating 1169.

A group consisting of NBO organizers and scientific staff at the Department of Biosciences (IBV), University of Oslo, makes all exam questions. A biology teacher on each participating school acts as a contact person for the representative school and is responsible for carrying out the two first rounds of the NBO. The third and final round is held at the Department of Biosciences at the University of Oslo.

Where the tests consist of:

1st round: Multiple choice

2nd round: Multiple choice and short answer questions

3rd round: Multiple choice

The 16 best students will get a 4 days training camp at the University of Oslo based on theoretical syllabus of the IBO.

The 4 winning students will get a 3-4 days practical training camp before going to IBO.

At the moment we do not have specific study material for NBO. However, we recommend that students read high-school textbooks (Bios1 and 2 or BI1 and BI2) and University textbooks such as Campbell Biology. We also recommend students to look at former IBO exams.

The award prizes are diplomas.

The winning students will get a free trip to IBO.

No specific access to University is linked to NBO.

All high school students in Norway may participate in the first round.

It is free for students and schools to participate in NBO. 

August - June

Minimum: 0 hours

Maximum: 4-5 hours a week.

Minimum:

Maximum: 40 hours a week

Media coverage

We are hoping on getting media coverage from newspapers, the University homepage and social media. We update our website and our Facebook-group

The NBO coordinator.

• 2021: 1102 students from 72 schools (18% of eligible schools)
• 2020: 1052 students from 76 schools (19% of eligible schools)
• 2019: 990 students from 71 schools (18% of eligible schools)
• 2018: 1082 students from 71 schools (18% of eligible schools)
• 2017: 747 students from 53 schools (13% of eligible schools)

The percentage of eligible schools participating in the NBO is not fully correct, this as the calculation is based on including all high schools giving higher educational teaching, however some of these schools might not include biology in their curriculum, and thus not be eligible.

However I could not get the details of which schools teach biology from the The Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training internet page, but the numbers should be a good estimate.

Information about the Biology Olympiad is sent out to all high schools in Norway. We promote the competition on our web page and from our Facebook group. There have been reports in local newspapers about students that have managed to get a spot in the final round.