Harker’s National Economics Challenge team has ranked in the top eight in the nation and qualified for a trip to New York City for this year’s national finals! The team of seniors Jerry Chen, Melissa Kwan, Jimmy Lin and Justin Xie took first place last month at the Northern California finals, held at the San Francisco Federal Reserve (pictured). At the national finals, to be held May 19-21, the students will take a six-part exam that tests their knowledge of microeconomics, macroeconomics, current events and other relevant topics. Best of luck!
Over the weekend, four Harker teams won awards in the 2018 Tech Challenge Showcase, held at the Tech Museum in San Jose. At the event, teams of grade 4-12 students demonstrated the devices they had constructed for this year’s contest. More than 600 teams comprising 2,000 students entered the competition, which challenged them to design and build a device that could successfully fall 10 feet into a drop zone, then deliver a payload to a target situated on a ramp, without the aid of batteries or electricity.
Grade 4 students Sofia Shah, Minal Jalil, MacEnzie Blue, Tiffany Zhu, Tanvi Sivakumar, Arushi Sahasi and honorary team member Rocky (Jalil’s dog) formed team “SMMARTT,” which received an outstanding overall award in the grades 4-5 category.
Sixth graders Nathan T. Liu, Adrian Liu and Aniketh Tummala, known as the “Huskies,” won the award for top tech challenge story, which explained the origins of the device they built. The “FlyteZON” team, made up of Neel Handa, Om Tandon and Zachary Blue, all grade 6, won an award for being outstanding overall.
Team “Flopper Waffles” – grade 7 students Brian Chen, Andrew Fu, Jacob Huang and Nicholas Wei – received an award for outstanding device performance.
Last week, the boys golf team finished sixth out of 16 teams at the Aptos Invitational, before defeating Sacred Heart Prep 185-175 on Senior Day with Daulet Tuleubayev, grade 12, leading the way with a 4-under-par 30. The Eagles face off with Nueva on Monday, with a chance to capture the team’s fifth consecutive league championship. Then, on Tuesday, the boys compete at the WBAL Tournament at Coyote Creek.
Lacrosse
The lacrosse team improved to 12-2 on the year with a 16-4 win over Notre Dame Belmont and a 15-6 win over Mercy Burlingame last week. Tuesday is Senior Day against Aragon, followed by the regular season finale at Sacred Heart Cathedral on Friday.
Boys Volleyball
The 20-4 boys volleyball team continues to play at a very high level as it defeated Homestead 3-1 before suffering a tough five game loss to rival Monta Vista. The boys finish up the regular season with Senior Night on Wednesday against Homestead, before traveling to Los Gatos on Friday.
Boys Tennis
The boys tennis team finished the WBAL season with an impressive 12-2 record before entering the WBAL Championship. David Wen, grade 12, and the team of Randy Zhao and Neil Bai, both grade 12, went through the tournament without dropping a set before falling in the championship match. Seeding is today to determine where Harker starts it CCS journey on Wednesday.
Swim
Last week was Senior Day for the swim team as it faced off with The King’s Academy. The 200 medley relay teams went first and second; girls and boys went first and second in 200 free; boys went second and third in the 200 IM; boys went one-two-three in the 100 fly; and boys went first and second in the 500 free and first in the 400 free relay. The swim team takes o the pool on Friday for the WBAL trials and the finals on Saturday.
Track and Field
Last week, the Eagles competed at the final WBAL meet of the year. There were 22 personal bests as a team on the day, including Anna Weirich, grade 9, in the 400-meter and 800, and Tiffany Shou, grade 12, setting a new school record in the discus, beating the old mark by two feet. The Eagles compete at the WBAL trials at Palo Alto High on Saturday.
Baseball
The baseball team went 1-2 last week, bringing its season record to 8-8. In a 9-13 loss to Del Mar, Max Lee, grade 10, had a homerun and four RBIs. The Eagles bounced back with an 11-2 win over Westmoor that saw Luke Wancewicz, grade 9, Tanay Kamat, grade 12, Matthew Kennedy, grade 12, and Levi Sutton, grade 9, each drive in two runs. Harker finished off the week with a 7-2 loss to Jefferson. This week, the Eagles host Mills for Senior Day on Tuesday, then travel to Crystal Springs Uplands on Thursday and Silver Creek on Saturday.
Softball
The softball team started off the week with a bang as it defeated Gunderson 7-6, with Kristin LeBlanc, grade 12, delivering three hits and two RBIs. The Eagles followed it up with an exciting 11-10 win over Crystal Springs Uplands in 10 innings. Anika Rajamani, grade 11, had three hits and four RBIs. However, the girls ended the week with a 13-1 loss to The King’s Academy. This week, the Eagles are at Notre Dame Belmont on Tuesday, before hosting Castilleja on Thursday and Cupertino on Friday for Senior Day.
Harker students from the lower, middle and upper schools headed to San Diego last weekend for the Future Problem Solving California State Bowl, where teams from all three divisions won in various categories.
In the senior division (grades 10-12), the grade 11 team of Taylor Lam, Sara Min, Kelly Shen, and Tiffany Wong won for Presentation of Action Plan. In Global Issues Problem Solving, Jin Tuan, Amla Rashingkar, Sriya Prathuri, and Arushi Madan, all grade 10, took third place. Tuan also did well in Individual Global Issues Problem Solving, placing fourth overall.
Middle division students (grades 7-9) were especially successful, with the grade 8 team of Rohan Thakur, Shahzeb Lakhani, Daniel Wu and Kailash Ranganathan emerging as the winners in Global Issues Problem Solving, qualifying them for the international competition in June. Ninth graders Stephanie Shen, Luisa Pan and Elaine Zhai all participated in the MAGIC (Multiple Affiliate Global Issues Competition) event, in which teams are formed with students from different schools. Shen’s team placed first in Presentation of Action Plan, in which Zhai’s team took second place. In Global Issues Problem Solving, Pan’s team placed first.
Competing in the junior division (grades 4-6) was the grade 5 team of Daniel Chen, Anika Pallapothu and Anandita Arun, who earned third place in Presentation of Action Plan.
Watch for the article on Future Problems Solvers and other competitive programs in the 2018 summer issue of Harker Magazine to be delivered in late June.
At the California Junior Classical League Convention, held on April 13 and 14 at Menlo School, Harker upper school Latin students were successful in a large number of events, with Harker taking first place overall in its division.
Two students won awards for the best academic performance at their respective levels. Freshman Akshay Manglik won in level 3, competing against 223 other students, and sophomore Jeffrey Fung was the winner at the advanced level, in which 236 other students competed.
Fung was also the top scorer in the academic pentathlon and grammar II tests. Other top test scorers were senior Edgar Lin in derivatives and Andrew Semenza in reading comprehension III.
Several more Harker students earned top spots in other competitions, including Elliot Kampmeier, grade 9, who placed second in level 1 sight reading.
In the level 3 events, Manglik took first place in pentathlon and dramatic interpretation, second place in grammar II and third in derivatives. Anna Vazhaeparambil, grade 9, placed third in pentathlon, dramatic interpretation and cartoons. Sara Yen, grade 9, took second place in dramatic interpretation and grammar II, and junior Ben Yuan finished in second place for both reading comprehension III and sight reading, with a third place finish in Latin oratory.
At the advanced level, Jai Bahri, grade 10, placed second in sight reading (poetry), and Arohee Bhoja, grade 9, took second in dramatic interpretation. Junior Timothy Chang placed first in essay, third in classical art and third in daily life. In addition to his other wins, Fung also took first place in sight reading (poetry), third place in ancient geography and third place in sight reading (prose). Sophomore Avi Gulati placed first in grammar II, pentathlon and sight reading (poetry), as well as third in ancient geography and sight reading (poetry). Semenza took top spots in three events, placing first in reading comprehension III, second in derivatives and third in vocabulary. Sophomore Kyle Li had third place finishes in both mythology and pentathlon, and Lin took second place in pentathlon in addition to his win in derivatives. Finally, Sara Min, grade 11, placed third in mythology, Ayush Pancholy, also grade 11, finished third in reading comprehension III and sophomore Jack Hansen took third in reading comprehension III.
Each year, John Near and Mitra Family endowment scholars are honored at a special reception in the Nichols Hall auditorium. Established in 2009 and 2011, respectively, The John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment Fund and Mitra Family Endowment for the Humanities have allowed students to pursue research on a wide variety of topics. At the reception, students, their teachers and their mentors come together for the formal presentation of the papers prior to Harker’s librarians archiving them online for posterity.
The 2018 scholars are seniors Derek Yen, Andrew Semenza, Serena Lu, Matthew Lee, Amy Jin, Alan Jiang, Jacqueline He and Emily Chen. These students traveled new paths as they defined and researched their chosen topics. The results are eight papers, each delving into a facet of history, and eight students who know more about themselves than when they started their projects one year ago.
Each student spoke eloquently on the journey to self-knowledge and was effusive in praise for both the program and the mentors who helped them succeed in a grueling task while maintaining all of their regular classes. The list of papers is below. Each scholar had poignant memories of their intellectual journey.
Emily Chen, via video, spoke to the magnitude of the project and the changes that came along the way. “It was a really interesting project that started and ended in two completely different places,” she said. “I was definitely not expecting to change my thesis 60 pages into the paper, or to hold a tiny plastic ruler up to my computer screen hours before the deadline getting the widths of 40 different screen caps of movies or to produce a paper of this length. None of this was in the original game plan, but I’m really glad it turned out this way and I’m really glad to have participated in this program.”
“With a project of this size comes the invaluable support and contributions of many,” said Amy Jin, addressing her mentors. “I have learned from you the importance of not just challenging, questioning and striving to connect the pieces of historical narrative, but also of accepting any missing pieces simply because not all questions are answerable.”
“For me, at least, researching as a Near Scholar has been truly one of the most fulfilling, challenging and informative experiences of my life,” said Derek Yen. “I realize that this will … be one of the defining features of my entire education. The fact that Harker has such a well-developed and comprehensive humanities program is very, very valuable and very rare.”
Among the many positive aspect of the effort, Yen noted, is the contact with university research sources. “Besides just being able to access university archives and primary documents, being able to connect with the scholarly community by being able to speak with professors has really, for me, put into perspective the true nature of academic scholarship.”
Andrew Semenza, who was traveling, had his remarks delivered by Yen. “Despite some frustrations, the past year has been significantly bettered for me by my participation in the program. Not only did I have the opportunity to dig into something quite meaningful to me, but the research gave me a sort of an extracurricular intellectual structure through with I might think about other ideas. To me, this sharing of research (with the other scholars) is particularly important in the humanities where the intellectual currency consists of concepts and ideas, above all else.”
Jacqueline He added, “To me, Near/Mitra represents not just an academic endeavor, but also a journey of personal growth. I grew to love the atmosphere of the humanities, which is immersive and interdisciplinary and always challenging. I learned that nothing in history is ever meant to be clear cut, and that’s what makes the process so inherently enjoyable.”
Alan Jiang has attended Harker for the last two years. “Throughout the whole process, I realized that there is so much more that I have learned,” he said. “I thought that my paper was only going to be focused on psychology, but there are elements of linguistics, there are elements of biology on how the human brain interacts with the vocal mechanisms, and I am truly humbled by the vast knowledge that I was exposed to. Although my time as a Near/Mitra scholar ended, my time as a student has not; there is so much more new information, new knowledge that awaits.”
“The Near/Mitra program is near and dear to my heart,” said Serena Lu, “and I think the research we have all done demonstrates the value in learning about humanities no matter what field we go into. I have learned one very big lesson from my research: Always think critically about what you are taught, and what you teach.”
Matthew Lee thanked the entire social sciences department at Harker, where, “stopping by with a quick question evolved into a discussion on how a specific historical event came to be, how we critique and view history, and that really, really matters,” he said.
“That to me,” he added, “is the essence of social science. Learning social science enables us to view the world through a different lens, altogether – it creates better citizens, not just better workers. Beyond just the eight scholars on this stage, today, know that you have planted a blossom in every single Harker student that enables them to not only be good students in the classroom, good workers in the workplace, but also dedicated citizens in the world around them.”
The Papers
“Critical Mass: Examining the Unique Circumstances that Elevated the Newsworthiness of the Three Mile Island Accident,” by Derek Yen, Near Scholar
“River to Reservoir: Changes in Philosophies of Environmental Preservation Argumentation in Relation to 20th-Century Dam-Building,” by Andrew Semenza, Near Scholar
“Games of Truth: The Evolution of Japan’s History,” by Serena Lu, Mitra Scholar
“’There Are No Neutrals There:’ Radicalism, Progressivism, and Class Struggle in 1930s Harlan Kentucky,” by Matthew Lee, Near Scholar
“Carving Small Fish From Gold: Exploring the Genesis of Magical Realism in Latin American Literature as a Means of Resistance,” by Jacqueline He, Mitra Scholar
“Sounds as Speech Therapy: The Trials of Pronouncing a New Language,” by Alan Jiang, Mitra Scholar
“Bad Blood: Racialized Medicine and Scientific Self-Regulation in the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment,” by Amy Jin, Near Scholar
“Across Every River: French New Wave Formalism and Fifth Generation Chinese Cinema,” by Emily Chen, Mitra Scholar
Earlier this week, Lisa Masoni’s grade 6 Latin students celebrated Rome’s 2,771st birthday (which fell on April 21) by preparing and sampling various foods from ancient Rome, including dates dipped in honey, sesame candy, meatballs and libum (Roman cheesecake). Students also had their first taste of garum, a fish sauce used by ancient Romans as a condiment. Sixth grader Ronald Cartee’s take on garum was that it would be “popular for a taste-test challenge,” Masoni said. Sensing a rare photo opportunity, Masoni had several students make faces that approximated their reactions to tasting garum for the first time, with varied (and very amusing) results.
Last month, senior Amy Jin was named one of five students nationwide to receive the Cutler-Bell Prize in High School Computing. Jin’s project provides surgeons with a way to assess their technique by analyzing their movements and providing feedback on a variety of criteria, such as economy of motion and bimanual dexterity (the term for dexterity demonstrated when performing tasks that require both hands). In developing the project, Jin used videos of surgical procedures, which were analyzed via “computer vision,” according to a press release by the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA). She also sought the feedback of a team of surgeons, who validated the assessments.
The Cutler-Bell Prize is awarded each year by the CSTA and the Association for Computing Machinery to promote the study of computer science among high school students. The individual or team behind each winning project received a cash prize of $10,000 (toward tuition at the university each student will attend) and an invitation to the CSTA annual conference in July in Omaha, Neb., where the awardees will be formally recognized for their achievements.
On April 16, students in Kumi Matsui’s Japanese 2M class went on a special field trip to learn more about Japanese culture and customs, starting with a visit to Japanese restaurant Tomisushi.
“They ordered dishes using Japanese expressions they have been practicing in class and enjoyed a tasty, authentic, Japanese lunch,” Matsui said. “The students benefited from practicing Japanese outside the classroom while learning Japanese food culture.”
Later, the students visited the Hakone Gardens in Saratoga to observe a tea ceremony, “a wonderful opportunity for the students to learn about the choreographic movement of this special Japanese ritual,” Matsui added. To finish the trip, the students toured the gardens, enjoying the beautiful scenery and feeding fish in its koi pond.
Harker students did extremely well last weekend at the California High School Speech Association state tournament, with four Eagles making it to finals! Avi Gulati, grade 10, was second in original oratory; Haris Hosseini, grade 11, was third in original oratory; Nikki Solanki, grade 10, was seventh in thematic interpretation; and Jason Huang, grade 11, was seventh in congressional debate. Jason Lin, grade 9, also qualified to compete in congressional debate. Congrats to the students and coach Scott Odekirk on a great season. Watch for more speech and debate news from National Speech & Debate Association Nationals in June.