Upper and lower school students recently collaborated on a project to help students become more environmentally conscious. Last year the upper school Key Club placed stickers on all upper school towel dispensers in an effort to improve conservation and promote responsible use of paper towels. This year they proposed expanding this program to the lower and middle schools as well and this fall, Key Club members met with members of the lower school Service Club to complete the project.
While putting up the stickers, the students shared some of their experiences and ideas for future projects. In addition to providing a valuable environmental service to the lower school, this project also gave younger students a chance to see what kinds of activities await them when they get to the upper school. Look for collaboration across grade levels to continue, as the Key Club has invited Service Club members to join them at several CVS pharmacies this holiday season in an effort to raise money for Second Harvest Food Bank.
[Update] Stanford researchers were on campus today running a trial experiment in anticipation of a full scale study in January. This is their second visit to the campus; there was an earlier trial run in November. Harker is the only school participating in the study, said Kate Schafer, biology teacher, who is working with the Stanford researchers to effect the data collection.
Today, researchers hung motes around the necks of 100 students and teachers to help plan for the full-scale data collection in mid-January. Prior to the final event, letters will be sent to parents explaining the process, and the lead investigator, along with others involved in the experiment, will address the students in assembly. The day before the event, students will be briefed on the next day’s activity. The actual data collection for the study will be made on January 14.
Nov. 16, 2009
Come January, the upper school will be participating in a groundbreaking Stanford study on the way viruses are spread by human interaction. By outfitting all members of the Saratoga campus with motes, a device measuring human interaction, researchers hope to gain insight into the way viruses are spread among individuals. The National Science Foundation provided funding for new technology developed for the study.
Recently, a trial run was done on campus with the motes on a small number of students. However, there were some inconsistencies with the technology and as a result several of the researchers have been back to work out the kinks. Another test is scheduled to run around mid-December.
Prior to the final experiment, the Stanford professors will explain the nature of the research in an assembly. One interesting aspect is that the research is being conducted by professors of sociology, biology, computer science and statistics, giving our students insight into the interdisciplinary nature of much major research. Ultimately, the professors will submit results for publishing in major publications.
[Update] Stanford researchers were on campus today running a trial experiment in anticipation of a full scale study in January. This is their second visit to the campus; there was an earlier trial run in November. Harker is the only school participating in the study, said Kate Schafer, biology teacher, who is working with the Stanford researchers to effect the data collection.
Today, researchers hung motes around the necks of 100 students and teachers to help plan for the full-scale data collection in mid-January. Prior to the final event, letters will be sent to parents explaining the process, and the lead investigator, along with others involved in the experiment, will address the students in assembly. The day before the event, students will be briefed on the next day’s activity. The actual data collection for the study will be made on January 14.
Nov. 16, 2009
Come January, the upper school will be participating in a groundbreaking Stanford study on the way viruses are spread by human interaction. By outfitting all members of the Saratoga campus with motes, a device measuring human interaction, researchers hope to gain insight into the way viruses are spread among individuals. The National Science Foundation provided funding for new technology developed for the study.
Recently, a trial run was done on campus with the motes on a small number of students. However, there were some inconsistencies with the technology and as a result several of the researchers have been back to work out the kinks. Another test is scheduled to run around mid-December.
Prior to the final experiment, the Stanford professors will explain the nature of the research in an assembly. One interesting aspect is that the research is being conducted by professors of sociology, biology, computer science and statistics, giving our students insight into the interdisciplinary nature of much major research. Ultimately, the professors will submit results for publishing in major publications.
Harker welcomed international speaker Patrick Kuhse to the Saratoga campus on Dec. 2 for a special talk on ethics, and how good people can be led to make unethical decisions. Kuhse, who appeared courtesy of the Honor Council, is in high demand as a speaker on ethics at businesses and universities across the country, and is an ethics fellow at the University of Florida and Suffolk University.
Kuhse used his own life story as an allegory, interweaving the autobiographical tale with examples of what he called critical thinking errors: entitlement, arrogance, rationalization and so on. A reformed criminal who spent four years in prison for his involvement in illegally benefiting from Oklahoma state funds, Kuhse began his story at Arizona State University. While studying finance, he made many friends who he said were very eager to make money and become wealthy. This “take no prisoners” attitude that he witnessed in his younger years, Kuhse said, has not changed much in the years leading up to today.
“I’m very, very heavily involved in academics. Do you think I’m seeing any shift or change from my generation to yours?” he asked the audience. “Not so much.”
Kuhse later dropped out of college and eventually found work in finance in the early 1980s. His ambition and seemingly limitless drive to succeed made him quite successful, and in the ensuing years he moved all over the country with his family in the pursuit of greater opportunities. Moving to San Diego, he became a financial adviser to professional athletes, traveling frequently to meet with clients. After mentioning to his two sons one day that he would be bringing home the Most Valuable Player of the Super Bowl, Kuhse recalled, “my boys were looking at me, like, ‘Daddy, what’s a Super Bowl?’”
His obsession with becoming rich led him to become “emotionally unavailable” to his family. “The definition of wealth for me was money,” he declared. “If I made more money, I could buy them more things.”
By the end of the 1980s, Kuhse’s business was thriving, with offices located throughout the country. “I had the American dream,” he said. It was around this time that he received a call from a friend in Oklahoma, who planned to manage the campaign for a friend who was running for state treasurer. If her friend won, she would have a job in the treasurer’s office. Kuhse’s friend offered to send him money to invest on behalf of the state of Oklahoma, in exchange for kickbacks. Though illegal, the deal had the potential to create opportunities in the future.
“How do you know linguistically you’re sliding into an entitlement mode? When you change your ‘wants’ to ‘needs,’” he cautioned the audience. Changing wants into needs enables people to rationalize their misdeeds, making them seem less harmful than they actually are. “When we start to need something instead of want it, we’re starting to steel our minds and prepare ourselves to do things we wouldn’t otherwise do.”
Kuhse’s friend wound up getting the job at the treasurer’s office, and they began making deals. Nearly two years later, Kuhse was up $6 million. Then a bitter, recently fired employee complained to the FBI about the practices of Kuhse’s associate. The FBI came calling, and Kuhse was even featured in a report on ABC News. Faced with jail time, Kuhse uprooted his family and fled with them to Costa Rica.
“The next day, my boys woke up in a country they’d never heard of, a language they didn’t speak and a school where they didn’t know [anybody],” he said. “Who are the real victims of our unethical behavior? All of our loved ones are impacted by everything we do.”
It turned out that Costa Rica wasn’t far enough. After seven months, armed Interpol agents kicked down Kuhse’s door. He ran out the back. “I thought, ‘Kill me now? I win. You didn’t put me in prison,’” Kuhse recollected with bitter humor. “That’s how messed up I was.”
He remained on the run from authorities for four years. Fed up, Kuhse’s then-wife moved back to San Diego with their two sons. While watching his family depart, Kuhse finally decided to turn himself in. “It was time to stop, time to quit being a victim, time to take accountability,” he said.
After spending a month in a Costa Rican prison, Kuhse was extradited to the U.S. to serve the rest of his prison term. He called the prison visiting room “the most depressing place on earth. All these little kids want their daddies to go home with them.” He added, “It’s not the inmate that does the time, it’s the family.”
His children were so depressed, Kuhse said, they even told others that he had died. “This is their way of handling it, and this is what happened to me because my vision of wealth was not what my parents taught me. It was money,” he said.
Kuhse earned his college degree while serving his term, and was released in 2001. He got a job as a truck driver and began giving talks as part of his community service obligations. It was during this time that he decided to begin his speaking career. After Kuhse’s community service hours were completed, he received a call from his probation officer, who wanted to know which box to check to indicate the job Kuhse would be taking. The officer got quite a laugh when Kuhse said he planned to become a motivational speaker.
[Update II] Olivia Zhu, Gr. 11, selected by UNICEF USA to participate in the first-ever Children’s Climate Forum (CCF), has finished her work in Copenhagen. Zhu has been blogging about her experiences at www.environmentaleagles.blogspot.com. Here is an excerpt from her last entry, Saturday, Dec. 5:
“Becca mentioned that we had a Q+A session yesterday. Something interesting that I noticed was that the vast majority of questions asked by the youth delegates from all over the world were about the US inaction in the realm of climate change. Why would such a powerful country not change its policies? Why was its president only staying for the beginning? As an American, it was hard for me to hear these questions—precisely because they were the same ones that I was thinking. In fact, Josh even admitted that he was embarrassed that his country hadn’t committed to solid action. ”
[Update 12/02/09] Olivia Zhu, Gr. 11, selected by UNICEF USA to participate in the first-ever Children’s Climate Forum (CCF), is now in Copenhagen, Denmark and reporting on her work there. It may be Europe, but it is not a vacation! Follow her blog at www.environmentaleagles.blogspot.com. Here’s an excerpt from day one:
“Throughout lunch and the plenary sessions of the afternoon, we were able to socialize with and meet many more delegates. I got to talk to Jesús, of Spain, about our shared love of Spanish food. With the group of Chinese delegates, I broke out my stilted Mandarin. Haitian delegate Coralie worked with Fergal, of Ireland, and me on finalizing our subsection of the Urbanization group’s presentation. There were so many amazing people that we met throughout the day and so many different countries represented! I’m so excited to go back tomorrow and meet even more.
“Over lunch, I had an interesting conversation with Daniel of Denmark and Anand of India about the climate policies of our respective countries. We discussed President Obama’s promises and work as well as future directions of the U.S. I think this conversation really highlighted how respectful everyone has been at this conference. Despite differing views, we’re working towards a common goal while cooperating and seeing eye-to-eye after debating a variety of contentious issues.” –Olivia Zhu
Sept. 29, 2009 Olivia Zhu, Gr.11, wants to change the world and before the year is out, she’ll get her chance.
Zhu, Gr. 11, was one of four students selected by UNICEF USA to participate in the first-ever Children’s Climate Forum (CCF), to be held together with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in Copenhagen, Denmark, in late November and early December.
Organized by UNICEF Denmark, CCF will host teens from 40 nations in hopes of creating “a cadre of young global citizens who understand their role in finding solutions to global concerns, to advance young people’s understanding of global issues, and to provide a platform for them to discuss and advocate on these issues.”
In July, UNICEF USA notified Lauri Vaughan, US librarian, about the CCF competition. She passed the information on to the 32 students who participated in last year’s J8 competition, another UNICEF-sponsored event run parallel to the annual G8 Summit. A team of eight Harker students represented the U.S. in 2007, and in the 2008 competition two Harker teams finished in the top 10 nationally, one as second runner-up.
Two students involved with the 2008 J8 competition also took up the CCF challenge: Carissa Jansen, Gr. 12 and Rohan Bopardikar, Gr. 10, also submitted multi-essay applications despite a tight deadline.
Zhu is passionate about addressing the threatened planetary environment: “Climate change is controversial. What benefits one nation might not help another,” she says. In her application, she emphasized two interventions: incentivizing investment in sustainable energies such as solar, wind and geothermal power, and modernizing electricity grids worldwide.
If arrangements are made for CCF representatives to meet their diplomatic counterparts, as they were at J8, the San Jose junior may get the chance to pass on her ideas to the leader of the U.S. delegation, Todd Stern, special envoy for climate change who was appointed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this year.
“I’m so excited for Copenhagen,” said Zhu, who is busy trying to keep up with news on climate change in preparation for her journey.
As president of Harker’s Future Problem Solving Club, community service organizer for the National Honor Society’s Harker chapter, and member of the Youth Advisory Council for her district in San Jose, Zhu has worked on big-picture issues before, proposing solutions to education problems in California and suggesting policy changes related to youth empowerment to her local council member.
“When I come back, I hope to share everything I learned at Copenhagen,” said Zhu. “It’s important to get as much information about climate change policy out there as possible, as it has a major impact now and will have an even bigger one on future generations.”
Prospective families visited the Upper School Open House on Nov. 6 to get a sneak peek at Harker student life and meet several of its faculty members. Student presentations were made by Namrata Anand, Kelsey Hilbrich, Mahum Jamal, Melinda Wang and Andrew Zhou, all Gr. 12; and Esther Belogolovsky, Rishi Bhatia and Tyler Koteskey, all Gr. 11. They spoke to the audience about student life and shared some of their memorable experiences at Harker. Families also saw a performance by the varsity Dance Troupe and toured the Saratoga campus, meeting its teachers and students while learning more about the various programs and clubs available for upper school students. Students acted as guides during the open house to help the event run more smoothly.
In November, Roslyn Li, Gr. 12, earned second place in the non-native speaking category at the 36th annual Japanese Speech Contest, held at the Japan Information Center of the Consulate General of Japan in San Francisco. Li’s speech, titled “Seeing is Believing,” detailed what she learned during her summer trip to Japan with her Japan Bowl teammates and upper school Japanese teacher Masako Onakado.
Harker’s boys water polo team has earned the Central Coast Section Interscholastic Federation 2009-10 fall season scholastic championship. The team won with an average GPA of 3.548 and was honored Nov. 21. Initiated in 1985, the program recognizes the varsity team for each sport with the highest GPA that year.
On Nov. 18, Harker hosted a special appearance from Dr. Sridhara Dasu, a scientist with CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. Dasu is part of the team working on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a massive particle accelerator located on the French-Swiss border that is designed to recreate the conditions that existed less than a billionth of a second after the Big Bang.
Dasu began his talk by bringing the audience up to speed on the development of the field physics, summarizing the discoveries of physicists such as Albert Einstein and Werner Heisenberg. He also covered the properties and behavior of electrons, protons, photons and other particles that physicists observe. During a slideshow presentation, he explained how these different particles travel through the LHC and how the giant structure captures their movement. One goal of the LHC, he said, was to confirm the existence of a particle known as the Higgs boson, which could help explain the origins of mass in the universe.
One of Dasu’s graduate students, Kyle Knoepfel, also spoke about his work at the Stanford Linear Accelerator (SLAC). Though not nearly as large as the LHC, Knoepfel said, the SLAC can still offer indirect assistance to the scientists at CERN, by informing them what not to look for.
Harker was visited by several colleges in late October and early November to give students a look at life at the universities they were interested in attending. Universities such as MIT, Georgetown, Yale, Duke and Northwestern sent representatives to speak to students and answer any questions they had about college life or the admissions process.