In late March, CareerConnect hosted Marguerite Gong Hancock, founder of the Computer History Museum’s Exponential Center and a graduate from both Stanford and Harvard, for a workshop titled “Career Advice in Humanities Fields.” She spoke about her professional experience and potential careers in various fields within the humanities. Gong talked about her career trajectory, what she has accomplished and why she chose this career path. She also offered advice to students who are interested in pursuing a degree in the humanities, and how to plan and prepare for a career in these fields.
The workshop was sponsored and promoted by Harker CareerConnect, a student-led networking, career preparatory and professionalism program. “I had an amazing time at the workshop,” said Arjun Virmani, grade 9. “The workshop, overall, made me more interested in the field of humanities.”
Alexander Young, grade 11, noted, “I enjoyed the event and gained a new perspective about how humanities can be useful in all fields.”
Synchronized swimmer Kate Chow, grade 12, recently competed at the U.S. Senior National Championships at Oro Valley Aquatic Center in Tucson, Ariz. The event is the most prestigious national competition for amateur swimmers. Chow won the individual high point award as she took home two first places, a second and a third while competing in technical team, free team, combo and free duet. This is Chow’s eighth year in synchronized swimming. She swims for the Santa Clara Aquamaids.
Congratulations to Carter Chadwick, grade 8, and his San Jose Jr. Sharks teammates on their California Amateur Hockey Association State Championship win last weekend in Southern California. Chadwick and his team went 8-0 and defeated the Anaheim Jr. Ducks in the finals on the road to the 14U B state title. Carter has been playing since he was 4 years old.
In the world of fencing, John Cracraft, grade 7, fenced in the Silicon Valley Regional Youth Circuit, held in Mountain View in early April, taking 30th out of 73 fencers in the Youth-12 boys foil event. Cracraft won two pool bouts and lost a third 4-5, seeding 42nd into the table. He then ran up against the 22nd seed, a tough left-hander and beat him 7-6 in overtime, flipping himself into the 32 bracket. He next fenced the No. 10 seed, an even tougher left-hander to end his day at 30th, a respectable finish in a tough event. Cracraft fences for Halberstadt Fencing Club and The Fencing Center, and is unrated. Ratings are earned in competitions and run A-E, A being the best fencers, combined with the year earned.
Ishani Sood, grade 6, fenced in the Super Youth Circuit in Escondido in mid-April and turned in some excellent results. In the Youth-14 women’s foil event, Sood, who holds a D-2017 rating and has earned several medals at national events, took 18th out of 62 fencers. She won all six pool bouts, seeding sixth into the table. She won her first elimination bout 14-5, then fell to the 27th seed. In the Youth-12 event, Sood medaled, taking fifth place out of 56 fencers. She again won all of her pool bouts and seeded sixth into the table. She had a bye in the first round, then cleaned up, winning 15-3 and 14-9 before hitting the 14th seed and losing 9-15. Sood fences for California Fencing Academy.
Harker had a solid contingent of fencers at the Regional Junior-Cadet Circuit held in San Jose this past weekend. The event drew fencers from all over the state and from as far away as Denver.
Ethan Choi, grade 9, took 15th in the cadet (16 and under) event out of 62 fencers, an exceptional finish in a very tough field. Choi went 4-2 in pools to seed into the 19th slot on the table. He cleaned up his first opponent, then ran into the 14th seed, who he flipped in a tough 15-13 bout. Choi then lost to the No. 3 seed. Choi also fenced in the junior event (19 and under) and finished 21st. He went 3-2 in pools, seeding 21st. He won his first elimination bout handily, then ran into the No. 12 seed, and that finished his day in a tournament that included a substantial contingent of college-age fencers. Choi fences for M-Team and is rated D-2018.
Sana Pandey, grade 10, participated in the Harker Research Symposium on Saturday and then fenced in cadet women’s epee on Sunday. Pandey, a co-president of the Harker Fencing Club, did well in pools, coming out 4-2, seeding 15th into the table. She had a bye in the first round, then fenced the 18th seed, losing 11-15 to finish up a busy weekend. Pandey fences for the International Fencing Academy of California and holds a C-2017 rating.
Nerine Uyanik, grade 10, co-president of the Harker Fencing Club, fenced in two foil events, finishing 28th out of 50 in the junior event and 30th out of 48 in the cadet event, following a break to recover from an injury. In the junior event, Uyanik was 2-3 in pools, seeding 27th into the table, where she won her first bout and lost her second to the No. 6 seed, an A-rated fencer who eventually won the tournament, pushing the bout to time. In the cadet event, she went 2-4 in pools, seeding 34th, won her first elimination bout then fought the No. 3 seed to a standstill in an incredibly tough bout, losing 15-14. Uyanik fences for San Francisco Fencing Academy and holds a B-2017 rating
Kishan Sood, grade 9, also coming off an injury, fenced in men’s cadet foil, finishing 41st out of 62. Sood went 2-4 in pools to seed 36th. He lost his first elimination bout to the 29th seed. Like his sister, Sood fences for California Fencing Academy. He holds an E-2017 rating.
Jerrica Liao, grade 12, fencing one of her last events as a high schooler, had a fine day, finishing third in junior women’s foil for a bronze medal. Liao, who has signed on to fence at Northwestern University, cleaned up in pools, 5-0, seeding fourth out of 50 fencers. Following a first round bye, she had one easier and two hard elimination bouts, with scores of 14-8. 14-13 and 14-13, before ending her day 14-8 against the top seed. Liao fences for Silicon Valley Fencing and holds a A-2015 rating.
William Cracraft, Harker Fencing Club advisor, fenced in the Bay Cup Series Veteran (40 and over) foil event on Sunday, taking the gold and improving his rating. He went 5-2 in pools, then ran through the table, beating two B-rated fencers and an A-rated fencer, all national point holders (as is Cracraft) to take top honors. The gold medal match score was 10-1. Cracraft, who has been fencing for more than 35 years, fences for Halberstadt Fencing Club and The Fencing Center. He now holds a B-2018 rating.
To report non-Harker athletic results and other student accomplishments, email news@harker.org.
The Harker community was delighted to hear that Surbhi Sarna ’03 sold her medical device company, nVision Medical, for $275 million to Boston Scientific, but the real story is about Sarna’s journey to help women who were being underserved in health care. The story is well-told in the Forbes article that announced the sale, and the Harker community has had the moving experience of watching Sarna travel her path to help others. CBS also did a news story on her.
After graduating from Harker, Sarna studied molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and worked as a clinical scientist at the Stanford University School of Medicine. After graduating from Berkeley in 2007, she worked as an engineer for medical device companies Abbott Vascular and BioCardia. In 2009, only six years out of Harker, she founded venture-backed nVision Medical, dedicated to developing technology to help gynecologists more quickly detect ovarian cancer. Following a successful clinical trial, the company received FDA approval for its device in November 2015. Harker has been honored to follow her progress.
In 2013 Sarna took time from her busy schedule to be the keynote speaker at the Harker Research Symposium, where she related the circumstances that fueled her drive to a crowd of about 400. After suffering from an ovarian cyst in her early teens, she became determined to create better conditions in the field of female health.
In January 2014, Sarna was named to Forbes prestigious “30 Under 30” list in the medical category. At that point, her company had raised $4.5 million from Catalyst Health Ventures, Draper Associates and Astia, a group that assists female entrepreneurs.
Sarna noted at the time, “It is a great honor to be chosen as one of Forbes ’30 Under 30.’ I know Harker has a lot do to with my drive to be an entrepreneur and I’m grateful for all of the teachers that inspired me while I was there.”
In the summer of 2016, Sarna was interviewed for an article in Harker Quarterly on alumni in science, in which she spoke of FDA approval for her device. “It was lots of work, but it couldn’t be more worth it. … From a dream, to a slide deck, to a prototype, to raising money and hiring a team, to first use in a person, to 90 patients successfully treated, to FDA approval!” she said in the article. Offering advice to other recent graduates interested in pursuing STEM and research education, she stressed the importance of seeking out mentors and advisors.
In 2017, Sarna was presented with the 2017 Distinguished Alumni Award by Harker’s Office of Alumni Relations and was honored at Homecoming halftime.
In the 2016 Harker Quarterly article, Sarna had advice for anyone with a quest like hers. “Take meetings with everybody, even when you don’t understand the direct benefit in doing so. Cast your net wide to open up doors,” she said. It is also important to follow your own passions, she added. “I started out as a patient, and I had to believe there were better options out there for women like me. I wanted to make a mark, and at the end of the day you have to follow your passions. It’s extremely rewarding to now be in a career providing service to others.”
The 13th annual Harker Research Symposium, held Saturday at the upper school campus, drew more than 700 people from the Harker community to learn more about “The Artificial Intelligence Revolution” – this year’s theme – and see the work of Harker student researchers.
Jeff Dean, a Google senior fellow with Google’s Brain Team and this year’s morning keynote speaker, attracted a large crowd to the Athletic Center for his talk on machine learning and how his team’s research has been applied to Google products. He also spoke about the ways machine learning will change how we live in the future, covering urban renewal through self-driving cars and better healthcare through improved informatics.
Attendees later made their way to the Nichols Hall atrium, where they perused the many exhibitors, including Microsoft, Nvidia, Roku and Solvvy, trying out virtual reality and holographic technology, as well as learning about advancements in video streaming and AI-driven customer self-service.
At the auxiliary gym, the middle and upper school poster presentations proved once again to be a popular attraction, as students gave detailed breakdowns of their research and findings to curious visitors. Breakout sessions also were held, during which Harker upper school students gave presentations on research projects they had conducted.
With artificial intelligence experiencing rapid growth, the symposium aimed to prepare future generations to enter (and perhaps have a hand in creating) a future of intelligent machines through a series of workshops for lower, middle and upper school students. In the upper school workshop, Harker parent and LodgIQ CTO Somnath Banerjee (Sumantra, grade 11, and Nila ’14) learned how to train neural networks and create a machine-learned image. Wayne Liu, general manager and vice president of business development at Perfect Corp., gave middle schoolers an introductory lesson on AI and how it is used in the real world, and got them started on an AI project of their own. Lower school students received a primer on AI and played games that taught key concepts in two separate workshops, one conducted by junior Natasha Maniar and sophomore Cynthia Chen, and another led by sophomores Joshua Valluru, Eileen Li and Vani Mohindra.
During lunch, attendees once again flocked to the quad to see chemistry teachers Andrew Irvine and David Casso (very safely) create balls of fire and spectacular plumes at the chemistry magic show, after which the crowd returned to the Athletic Center for the afternoon keynote address, delivered by Andrew Beck, co-founder and CEO of PathAI. In his talk, Beck detailed the work he is doing with PathAI, which aims to develop image recognition technology for use in pathology, including improving accuracy in the diagnosis and prediction of cancer. He also shared the impact he expects this technology will have on the medical field in the coming decades.
Alumna speaker Ramya Rangan ’12 delivered a talk on molecular machines to a packed Nichols Hall auditorium, detailing how discoveries about the inner workings of proteins and other macromolecules will lead to the design of human-made molecular machines, and the questions such advancements will bring.
Afternoon events also included talks by finalists from this year’s Siemens Competition and Regeneron Science Talent Search, with presentations given by senior Swapnil Garg and junior Katherine Tian, whose team project took them to national finals of the Siemens Competition, and seniors Justin Xie and Rajiv Movva, who were finalists in the Regeneron Science Talent Search.
The event closed with a panel discussion on the various research opportunities available to Harker students, delivered by upper school science teachers Anita Chetty and Chris Spenner, Harker parent Prasad Movva (Rajiv, grade 12, and Neil ’15), seniors Nastya Grebin, Amy Jin, Rajiv Movva and Justin Xie, and junior Katherine Tian.
Last weekend, a team of Harker students won the K-12 Championship at the CalChess State Scholastic Championship at the Santa Clara Convention Center. The team – senior Vignesh Panchanatham, junior Michael Wang, sophomore Michael Tang, fifth grader Vyom Vidyarthi, and fourth graders Anika Rajaram and Mihir Kotbagi – scored a total of 16 points to secure victory. In the K-6 Beginner team competition, fifth grader Anderson Chung, fourth graders James Lai and Alejandro Cheline, third grader Ian Cheline and second graders Jacob Chung and Jeffery Xu took first place.
In individual events, Panchanatham won first in the K-12 Championship, where Wang and Tang both placed in the top 10 and Vidyarthi among the top 15 in a 66-person event. Other standout performances were seen from Nathan Yan, grade 1, who finished in the top five in the K-6 Junior Varsity category, K-3 Championship competitors Rohan Rajaram, grade 1, and Omya Vidyarthi, grade 2, who both placed in the top 15, and third grader Lucas Lum, who reached the top 10 in K-3 Junior Varsity.
In late March, two dozen grade 7 and 8 students visited Greece for a weeklong journey, visiting the sites of many pivotal historical events and experiencing its complex culture firsthand. Students detailed their daily activities on their blog of the trip.
Major events during the first two days included a stop at the massive Corinth Canal and exploring the seaside town of Nafplio, as well as seeing the Theatre of Epidaurus and learning of its importance in the formation of theater arts. Students also visited a Mycenaean tomb and an acropolis.
At Crete, the largest of the Greek Islands, students viewed ancient frescoes and artifacts at the Heraklion Archaeological Museum and toured the storied palace of Knossos, believed to be the inspiration for the myth of the labyrinth and its prisoner, the Minotaur. Other stops included the Arkadi Monastery, which dates back to the fifth century and today still operates as an Eastern Orthodox monastery.
In Athens, students visited the site of the Battle of Marathon, as well as other famous landmarks including the Agora, the Acropolis and the Parthenon, learning history and purpose of each of the ancient structures.
Naturally, the students also made the most of every opportunity to shop and sample the country’s tremendous variety of foods!
Summer reports are still flowing in and it was great to hear Swapnil Garg ’18 has racked up a huge kudo winning a gold medal in individual competition at the International Linguistics Olympiad held in Prague, this summer. The U. S. sent two teams, which finished first and second, with Garg’s team (Red Team) taking the silver. Garg also received notice for a best solution on problem #5. Check out these results!
April 12, 2018
Congratulations to senior Swapnil Garg, who last weekend learned that he is officially a member of the United States’ Red team, which will compete at this year’s International Linguistics Olympiad (ILO). Garg ranked sixth overall in North America out of the 153 high school students who moved on to the invitational round of the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO). He soon will begin training with his teammates for the ILO, which is set to take place July 26-30 in Prague.
Harker’s varsity speech and debate team is heading into the end-of-season championships phase! The team has qualified an impressive 18 students (see photo!) to represent us at state and various national championships. The coaches are especially proud that the school will be represented in all of our main events: policy debate, Lincoln-Douglas debate, speech, congress and public forum debate.
This weekend, students will attend the first of the national championships, hosted by the National Debate Coaches Association in Atlanta. Next weekend, team members will attend the state championship in Mountain House, near Tracy. The weekend after, they will travel to the Tournament of Champions in Lexington, Ky. The team concludes its season with the National Speech & Debate Association Championship in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., in June. Watch for updates!
Qualifiers are:
Alan Hughes, grade 12
Megan Huynh, grade 12
Serena Lu, grade 12
Jacob Ohana, grade 12
Alycia Cary, grade 11
Nikhil Dharmaraj, grade 11
Haris Hosseini, grade 11
Jason Huang, grade 11
Anusha Kuppahally, grade 11
Cindy Wang, grade 11
Clarissa Wang, grade 11
Avi Gulati, grade 10
Maddie Huynh, grade 10
Sachin Shah, grade 10
Nikki Solanki, grade 10
Jason Lin, grade 9
Andy Lee, grade 9
Andrew Sun, grade 9
Huge congrats to all! Best of luck in the coming events!
This article originally appeared in the summer 2016 Harker Quarterly.
Thanks to several innovative buddies programs, Harker Preschool STEM students are becoming increasingly connected to the larger school community. The various programs bring “big kids” from the lower, middle and upper school campuses together with preschoolers for shared learning.
Math Buddies, a partnership with grade 5 math students, and Eco Buddies, an ecological program with grade 8 students, are both new this year. Meanwhile, STEM Buddies, a collaboration with the upper school’s WiSTEM club, has been happening for a number of years, serving as a role model for the new student mentoring programs.
On March 14, as math enthusiasts around the world celebrated Pi Day, students at Harker united in a math-based celebration of their own called Math Buddies. Math Buddies is a new partnership between Harker’s preschool and grade 5 students. The group’s inaugural effort, a math fair, was held in the afternoon at the preschool’s STEM lab.
The lower school big buddies presented hands-on math activities at various stations they had designed for Harker’s 4-year-old preschoolers and transitional kindergarten students.
“Pi Day was made especially memorable for students at the preschool,” said Robyn Stone, the preschool’s STEM specialist. “Lower school students brought their passion and enthusiasm for math to introduce pi and other mathematics concepts to our young learners.”
In math circles, March 14 (3.14) is known as Pi Day in honor of the number representing the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. “So, it was a natural date for us to select,” Stone added. Working in small groups under the guidance of Eileen Schick, lower school math lab teacher, 20 fifth graders developed hands on, developmentally appropriate math games and activities for their younger pals.
They also committed six lunch periods to creating posters and working on a script for how to engage with preschoolers. They then brought math activities (incorporating math concepts such as algebra, geometry, measurement, number/ operation and data analysis) to the preschool through themed stations including height kites, pattern block design, beading bracelets, number bean bag toss, Lego towers, fraction circles, color chip coding and match the shape.
At the end of the program, each child received a “Math Buddies” sticker and a goody-bag filled with math prizes. Transitional kindergarten student Julia Ho recalled that her favorite activity was “making a pattern bead bracelet.”
Meanwhile, 4-year-old Zayd Ahmed said he “liked the bean bag game.” Other preschool students cited making a height kite, playing with Legos and dice, and making pattern b ck flowers as their favorite Math Buddies activities.
Their big buddies, meanwhile, said they enjoyed traveling to the Union campus and spending time with the young mathematicians.
“I think this is very fun and educational for young kids and I also think it would befun to continue next year,” said Keesha Gondipalli, grade 5.
“This was an amazing experience. It made math social and super fun!” agreed fifth grader Sara Bhowmick. Schick said she was especially proud of the effort the fifth graders made to connect with their math buddies. “All their hard work, creativity, initiative and dedication created a truly enriching, educational event. However, I was most impressed by how engaged the buddies were with the preschoolers. They addressed each preschooler by name, got down to eye-level with them, and invited them to participate. In other words, I could not ask for a better result!” said Schick.
On Earth Day, April 22, the entire Harker community celebrated by wearing green and engaging in environmental activities across all four campuses. At Harker Preschool, students used the occasion to launch a fun and educational new preschool/middle school program called Eco Buddies.
The largest buddies event yet, Eco Buddies was open to the entire preschool and united more than 50 eighth graders with 120 preschoolers. The event also marked the first time the preschool’s 3-year-olds had the opportunity to meet with students from another Harker campus.
“Eco Buddies is unique because it is a program for all of our preschoolers, even the youngest ones,” said Robyn Stone.
During the event, a collaborative effort between Stone and grade 8 biology teacher Kristen Morgensen ’93, the eighth graders presented hands-on ecology activities to their younger preschool pals. “This whole experience meant so much on all levels – as a teacher getting to share the magic of our preschool with her own students, as a parent getting to watch her own child learn from the big kids, and sharing the magic of our middle school students with the preschool community as a whole,” said Morgensen, who, in addition to being an alumna, is also a current preschool parent (3-year-old Teagan).
Both Morgensen and Stone thought Earth Day was a perfect day to launch the new Eco Buddies program, since events are held around the world to demonstrate support for environmental protection. “As a Green Committee member, I knew Harker was aiming for a school wide Earth Day celebration. Since Kristen and I are both science teachers, it seemed natural for us to collaborate on an Earth Day program,” said Stone.
“I wasn’t sure how many grade 8 students would make the commitment. They amazed me with how many volunteered and how excited they have been to participate!” recalled Morgensen. The big buddies worked hard to create posters and activities for the different hands-on stations, which were grouped by ecological themes such as animal care, solar energy use, composting, wind energy, plant germination and water conservation.
“It was really fun!” said Henry Wiese, grade 8. “It was really cool to see the preschoolers make connections between how real cars and solar toy cars move.”
Classmate Vedanth Sundaram agreed, noting, “It was really fun to watch the kids learn from the worm sock puppet about what goes in the green (wet) and blue (dry) [recycling] bins.”
Reflecting back on the day, transitional kindergartner Danya Arun said, “I liked making the bird house.”
“I liked filtering the dirty water and making it clean,” added classmate Hannah Micchelli. Meanwhile, 4-year-old Aria Mehra reported enjoying “sprouting radish seeds.”
STEM Buddies days at Harker Preschool are always special, with students proudly donning buddy badges and taking turns filing excitedly into the science lab. There they have the unique opportunity to visit and interact with their upper school pals, who visit to share their love of all things STEM.
Passing along the joy of science, technology, engineering and mathematics is the goal behind Harker’s innovative STEM Buddies program, which teams the school’s littlest learners with upper school students from the WiSTEM (Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) club for fun, interactive learning through a series of themed workshops.
At their first visit in 2013, club members presented each preschool student with a special button to wear during their time together. Anita Chetty, upper school science department chair, and Robyn Stone came up with the win-win idea to pair members of WiSTEM with the preschoolers for hands-on STEM exploration.
Since then, the STEM Buddies workshops, held several times throughout the year for the 4- and 5-year-olds, have been a huge hit. Each activity is focused around a particular topic or strand of STEM. The younger students are excited to have their big buddies visit, while the teens are gaining confidence about sharing and teaching complicated knowledge in ways that are simple to understand. “This collaborative opportunity is aligned with WiSTEM’s mission to spread the love of STEM,” reported Chetty.
According to Stone, the workshops have proven to be the perfect fit for the preschool’s STEM specialty class, offering a balance between child-directed exploratory learning and WiSTEM-directed activities. WiSTEM’s mission is to foster female students’ interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, to provide role models and mentors in those fields, and to educate the community about gender issues in the sciences.
The club, which Chetty advises, sponsors guest lecturers, holds technical workshops for the Harker community led by female scientists, and creates a network of female mentors – including Harker alumnae – working in STEM fields.
Last year, Harker Quarterly observed seven members of WiSTEM (current seniors Grace Cao, Alyssa Crawford, Shreya Mathur and Chandini Thakur and 2015 graduates Allison Kiang, Daniela Lee and Nitya Mani) as they traveled to the preschool campus to work with students on a series of STEM activities related to life science and the human body.
At one station on the skeletal system, the youngsters met an artificial skeleton named “Mr. Skelly” and participated in a “bone dance.” Another station featured the muscular system, allowing the students to use a sensor to squeeze a muscle and determine how much force it exerted, as well as examine the muscles of a chicken wing. Yet another station, on the cardiovascular system, allowed the children to use a stethoscope to hear how their heart sounds before and after jumping; they were also able to view a dissected pig heart.
Wearing a white WiSTEM T-shirt, club member Cao was working in the muscle station, measuring and graphing her younger buddies’ grip strength. She said she found the STEM Buddies event to be very enjoyable and the children to be outgoing and active participants. “I feel that the program is going really well. Teaching and interacting with preschoolers is a fun experience!” she added.
Other STEM Buddies events have revolved around chemistry, environmental science, space science, explorations in light/dark, human physiology, anatomy and mathematics. The WiSTEM Club also put on a short musical for the preschool students about composting using worms (to reduce waste on the preschool campus).
This article originally appeared in the summer 2016 Harker Quarterly.
Thanks to several innovative buddies programs, Harker Preschool STEM students are becoming increasingly connected to the larger school community. The various programs bring “big kids” from the lower, middle and upper school campuses together with preschoolers for shared learning.
Math Buddies, a partnership with grade 5 math students, and Eco Buddies, an ecological program with grade 8 students, are both new this year. Meanwhile, STEM Buddies, a collaboration with the upper school’s WiSTEM club, has been happening for a number of years, serving as a role model for the new student mentoring programs.
On March 14, as math enthusiasts around the world celebrated Pi Day, students at Harker united in a math-based celebration of their own called Math Buddies. Math Buddies is a new partnership between Harker’s preschool and grade 5 students. The group’s inaugural effort, a math fair, was held in the afternoon at the preschool’s STEM lab.
The lower school big buddies presented hands-on math activities at various stations they had designed for Harker’s 4-year-old preschoolers and transitional kindergarten students.
“Pi Day was made especially memorable for students at the preschool,” said Robyn Stone, the preschool’s STEM specialist. “Lower school students brought their passion and enthusiasm for math to introduce pi and other mathematics concepts to our young learners.”
In math circles, March 14 (3.14) is known as Pi Day in honor of the number representing the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. “So, it was a natural date for us to select,” Stone added. Working in small groups under the guidance of Eileen Schick, lower school math lab teacher, 20 fifth graders developed hands on, developmentally appropriate math games and activities for their younger pals.
They also committed six lunch periods to creating posters and working on a script for how to engage with preschoolers. They then brought math activities (incorporating math concepts such as algebra, geometry, measurement, number/ operation and data analysis) to the preschool through themed stations including height kites, pattern block design, beading bracelets, number bean bag toss, Lego towers, fraction circles, color chip coding and match the shape.
At the end of the program, each child received a “Math Buddies” sticker and a goody-bag filled with math prizes. Transitional kindergarten student Julia Ho recalled that her favorite activity was “making a pattern bead bracelet.”
Meanwhile, 4-year-old Zayd Ahmed said he “liked the bean bag game.” Other preschool students cited making a height kite, playing with Legos and dice, and making pattern b ck flowers as their favorite Math Buddies activities.
Their big buddies, meanwhile, said they enjoyed traveling to the Union campus and spending time with the young mathematicians.
“I think this is very fun and educational for young kids and I also think it would befun to continue next year,” said Keesha Gondipalli, grade 5.
“This was an amazing experience. It made math social and super fun!” agreed fifth grader Sara Bhowmick. Schick said she was especially proud of the effort the fifth graders made to connect with their math buddies. “All their hard work, creativity, initiative and dedication created a truly enriching, educational event. However, I was most impressed by how engaged the buddies were with the preschoolers. They addressed each preschooler by name, got down to eye-level with them, and invited them to participate. In other words, I could not ask for a better result!” said Schick.
On Earth Day, April 22, the entire Harker community celebrated by wearing green and engaging in environmental activities across all four campuses. At Harker Preschool, students used the occasion to launch a fun and educational new preschool/middle school program called Eco Buddies.
The largest buddies event yet, Eco Buddies was open to the entire preschool and united more than 50 eighth graders with 120 preschoolers. The event also marked the first time the preschool’s 3-year-olds had the opportunity to meet with students from another Harker campus.
“Eco Buddies is unique because it is a program for all of our preschoolers, even the youngest ones,” said Robyn Stone.
During the event, a collaborative effort between Stone and grade 8 biology teacher Kristen Morgensen ’93, the eighth graders presented hands-on ecology activities to their younger preschool pals. “This whole experience meant so much on all levels – as a teacher getting to share the magic of our preschool with her own students, as a parent getting to watch her own child learn from the big kids, and sharing the magic of our middle school students with the preschool community as a whole,” said Morgensen, who, in addition to being an alumna, is also a current preschool parent (3-year-old Teagan).
Both Morgensen and Stone thought Earth Day was a perfect day to launch the new Eco Buddies program, since events are held around the world to demonstrate support for environmental protection. “As a Green Committee member, I knew Harker was aiming for a school wide Earth Day celebration. Since Kristen and I are both science teachers, it seemed natural for us to collaborate on an Earth Day program,” said Stone.
“I wasn’t sure how many grade 8 students would make the commitment. They amazed me with how many volunteered and how excited they have been to participate!” recalled Morgensen. The big buddies worked hard to create posters and activities for the different hands-on stations, which were grouped by ecological themes such as animal care, solar energy use, composting, wind energy, plant germination and water conservation.
“It was really fun!” said Henry Wiese, grade 8. “It was really cool to see the preschoolers make connections between how real cars and solar toy cars move.”
Classmate Vedanth Sundaram agreed, noting, “It was really fun to watch the kids learn from the worm sock puppet about what goes in the green (wet) and blue (dry) [recycling] bins.”
Reflecting back on the day, transitional kindergartner Danya Arun said, “I liked making the bird house.”
“I liked filtering the dirty water and making it clean,” added classmate Hannah Micchelli. Meanwhile, 4-year-old Aria Mehra reported enjoying “sprouting radish seeds.”
STEM Buddies days at Harker Preschool are always special, with students proudly donning buddy badges and taking turns filing excitedly into the science lab. There they have the unique opportunity to visit and interact with their upper school pals, who visit to share their love of all things STEM.
Passing along the joy of science, technology, engineering and mathematics is the goal behind Harker’s innovative STEM Buddies program, which teams the school’s littlest learners with upper school students from the WiSTEM (Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) club for fun, interactive learning through a series of themed workshops.
At their first visit in 2013, club members presented each preschool student with a special button to wear during their time together. Anita Chetty, upper school science department chair, and Robyn Stone came up with the win-win idea to pair members of WiSTEM with the preschoolers for hands-on STEM exploration.
Since then, the STEM Buddies workshops, held several times throughout the year for the 4- and 5-year-olds, have been a huge hit. Each activity is focused around a particular topic or strand of STEM. The younger students are excited to have their big buddies visit, while the teens are gaining confidence about sharing and teaching complicated knowledge in ways that are simple to understand. “This collaborative opportunity is aligned with WiSTEM’s mission to spread the love of STEM,” reported Chetty.
According to Stone, the workshops have proven to be the perfect fit for the preschool’s STEM specialty class, offering a balance between child-directed exploratory learning and WiSTEM-directed activities. WiSTEM’s mission is to foster female students’ interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, to provide role models and mentors in those fields, and to educate the community about gender issues in the sciences.
The club, which Chetty advises, sponsors guest lecturers, holds technical workshops for the Harker community led by female scientists, and creates a network of female mentors – including Harker alumnae – working in STEM fields.
Last year, Harker Quarterly observed seven members of WiSTEM (current seniors Grace Cao, Alyssa Crawford, Shreya Mathur and Chandini Thakur and 2015 graduates Allison Kiang, Daniela Lee and Nitya Mani) as they traveled to the preschool campus to work with students on a series of STEM activities related to life science and the human body.
At one station on the skeletal system, the youngsters met an artificial skeleton named “Mr. Skelly” and participated in a “bone dance.” Another station featured the muscular system, allowing the students to use a sensor to squeeze a muscle and determine how much force it exerted, as well as examine the muscles of a chicken wing. Yet another station, on the cardiovascular system, allowed the children to use a stethoscope to hear how their heart sounds before and after jumping; they were also able to view a dissected pig heart.
Wearing a white WiSTEM T-shirt, club member Cao was working in the muscle station, measuring and graphing her younger buddies’ grip strength. She said she found the STEM Buddies event to be very enjoyable and the children to be outgoing and active participants. “I feel that the program is going really well. Teaching and interacting with preschoolers is a fun experience!” she added.
Other STEM Buddies events have revolved around chemistry, environmental science, space science, explorations in light/dark, human physiology, anatomy and mathematics. The WiSTEM Club also put on a short musical for the preschool students about composting using worms (to reduce waste on the preschool campus).