Grade 2 students had the honor of creating the table centerpiece art for the recent 2016 Silicon Valley Go Red for Women Luncheon, a fundraiser benefiting the American Heart Association. The centerpieces consisted of clay hearts on long sticks, which were inserted into beautiful flower arrangements.
Go Red for Women is the American Heart Association’s national movement to end heart disease and stroke in women. Harker is an annual sponsor of the local luncheon, held this year on May 5 at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose. Harker regularly donates a basket of summer goodies, which includes a coupon for $500 off a summer camp at the school, to the event.
Attendees, who were all clad in red, enjoyed an engaging talk by keynote speaker Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, director of Women’s Heart Health at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York. Dr. Steinbaum is a national spokesperson for the Go Red for Women campaign and chairperson of Go Red for Women in New York City.
Steinbaum informed the audience that heart disease and stroke cause one in three deaths among women each year – more than all cancers combined. Fortunately, 80 percent of cardiac events can be prevented with education and lifestyle changes, she noted.
Go Red For Women inspires women to make lifestyle changes, mobilize communities and shape policies to save lives. For more information about the cause: https://www.goredforwomen.org/.
Shortly before the school year came to a close, middle school math teacher Kathy Pazirandeh and her advisees delivered toiletries they had collected to LifeMoves (formerly known as InnVision Shelter Network), a local shelter for homeless women and children.
“As an advisory, we collect toiletries all through the year and make care packets and donate them to the shelter at the end of the school year. This year we made 210 care packets, which we sorted, packed and delivered,” reported Pazirandeh.
According to the LifeMoves website, the nonprofit’s recent name change captures its mission and expectation that its clients will break their cycle of homelessness. Last year, 97 percent of families and 82 percent of individuals in interim housing who completed the LifeMoves program successfully returned to stable housing and self-sufficiency, according to the site.
Three Harker eighth graders received accolades for their scientific research at the California State Science Fair, held in late May in Los Angeles. Cynthia Chen placed fourth in the environmental engineering category for her project, titled “A Novel Method to Reduce Water Consumption in Germinating Seeds.” The team of Aarzu Gupta and Maya Shukla received the Clinical Chemistry Award, which included a $150 cash prize, for their project, “A Test of the Mutagenic and Carcinogenic Potential of Nicotine-Free Electronic Cigarette Additives.” They also received a $100 second-place award from the UCLA Brain Research Institute.
Other projects by Harker students displayed at the fair were “Effects of Emotions on Test Takers” by eighth graders Vibha Arramreddy and Sejal Krishnan and “Delicious or Disgusting?: The Effects of Priming on a Taster’s Reaction and Perception of Food” by eighth graders Allison Jia and Jasmine Wiese. This year’s California State Science Fair featured projects by 941 students from 421 schools across the state.
All of these projects were first-place winners in their respective categories at the Synopsys Science and Technology Championship, which qualified them for participation at the state level. The students were also enrolled in the middle school’s research program, an after-school class taught by middle school science teachers Kristen Morgensen, Kathy Peng and Thomas Artiss. “Students make the commitment to attend a one-hour per week class on a specified day,” said Morgensen “While we teach and mentor the students in the class, the projects are all created and derived by the students themselves.” The primary goal of the class, Morgensen added, is to “foster good scientific thinking and experience the entire scientific process.”
La Oferta – May 26, 2016 (Spanish): Harker is mentioned in a story about the Rita Moreno California High School Musical Honors. Harker’s “Bye Bye Birdie” was nominated for Outstanding Overall Production.
San Jose Mercury News – May 18, 2016: Harker swimmer Vivian Wang, grade 10, is mentioned for her second place finish in the CCS finals, which qualified her for the state meet.
Patch Saratoga – May 12, 2016: Seniors Victoria Ding, Anika Mohindra and Evan Lohn are listed in a story about National Merit Scholarship winners from Saratoga, Los Gatos and Campbell.
Patch Cupertino – May 12, 2016: Senior Karen Qi is listed in a story about Cupertino residents who received National Merit Scholarships.
Daily Democrat — May 11, 2016: Senior Evan Lohn is named in a brief update about local National Merit Scholarship winners.
SmartBrief – May 11, 2016: Diane Main, upper school director of Learning, Innovation and Design (LID), authored this blog entry on managing student projects with the Doctopus add-on for Google Apps.
Niki Iyer, grade 11, and the boys golf team finished off their impressive seasons last week by each placing at the state championships.
Iyer ran one of the top upsets at the California State Track Championships, where she placed third. Coming off of her CCS title run a week before, she was ranked 10th in the 3200-meter state meet run. Iyer placed 17th in last year’s state meet. She ran a 5:12 first mile, then a 5:12 for the second mile. The race took place in Clovis last Saturday in 93-degree weather at 10 p.m. Her third place finish was the best among all CCS runners at the competition.
The boys golf team made it to the state finals for the first time in Harker golf history and finished as the sixth best high school team in California! Please congratulate our boys golf team on a historic season. The team has every reason to be proud of its accomplishments and most team members will return next year, so we’ll look for more of the same! Season highlights also include the league championship, second place in CCS and third place at NorCals. Congratulations to both the boys golf team and Iyer for on a great year! Go Eagles!
Harker’s Future Problem Solving Team – ninth graders Kelly Shen, Sara Min and Tiffany Wong, and seventh grader Elaine Zhai – has advanced to the Presentation of Action Plan finals at the international competition! A celebration was in order, and with temperatures on the rise, the destination seemed obvious. “We celebrated by hitting up the Michigan State University on-campus Dairy Store for some homemade ice cream!” reported upper school debate teacher and team advisor Carol Green. The team competes in the final around on June 4. Wish them luck!
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Future Problem Solvers Taylor Lam, Kelly Shen, Sara Min and Tiffany Wong, all grade 9, are headed to internationals! In their division, the team placed first in presentation of action plan and second in global issues problem solving at the recent California Future Problem Solving championship. They will compete as California representatives at the international competition, which will be held at Michigan State University in June.
In the MAGIC competition –in which students meet their teammates for the first time on the day of competition – Evani Radiya-Dixit, grade 11, took first place in the middle/senior division, while Elaine Zhai, grade 7, took second. Earlier this semester, eighth graders Vishnu Jaisim and Jack Hansen took second and third, respectively, in the FPS scenario writing competition.
On the morning of June 2, the day before school let out for the summer, grade 3 students enjoyed a special visit from Colonel Patrick Shea, a general practice physician who served in the U.S. Air Force for 18 years. He is also the younger brother of lower school chef Matt Shea.
The colonel’s visit stemmed from a Veterans Day card-making project run by third grade homeroom and language arts teacher Elise Robichaud in November. After receiving cards made by the third graders, Colonel Shea contacted his brother, Chef Shea, to express his appreciation.
Robichaud then invited the colonel to come and speak with the students before the start of the lower school’s “Freedom of Choice Day,” during which students choose from variety of class sessions for a bit of fun on the last full day of school.
“Colonel Shea shared with the children just how valuable the cards they created were to military personnel, especially when they are deployed away from home. He even brought the cards with him, read the contents, and personally thanked each child for writing them. He wanted the children to understand that their cards are very valuable and help build morale,” recalled Robichaud.
Colonel Shea also answered questions from the students about his full dress uniform and all the ribbons he was wearing. He shared where he was deployed, how he has served and how wonderful advancements in medicine have increased survival rates for those in combat.
Following his talk, the students went on scavenger hunt created by lower school math and language arts teacher Kathy Ferretti. Afterward students headed to classrooms of their choosing, where they could select from a variety of activities. They also spent time watching the Movie Makers’ latest creation, a compilation of student-made three-minute video shorts, and enjoyed an end of the year party.
“It was a fun-filled, busy day for teachers and students alike on the last day of their third grade year. Another of the many grand adventures set forth for students as they wind their way through the halls of Harker!” said Heidi Gough, grade 3 history teacher.
Grade 3 student Vyom Vidyarthi has been a chess enthusiast for some time, and now his younger sister, Omya, who started kindergarten this year, has gotten in on the action! Both siblings have been showing exceptional chess prowess.
In May, Vyom was ranked No. 80 among players ages 9 and under by the United States Chess Federation, and won second place in the Best of the West Kids Chess Championship for his age group. He also won first place in the K-3 Blitz section of the CalChess Super State Scholastic Championship.
Meanwhile, Omya was ranked No. 26 among girls ages 7 and under by the United States Chess Federation, and won first place in the Best of the West Kids Chess Championship’s kindergarten section. Omya also won third place in CalChess Super State Scholastic Championship and second place in the Little Champs Championship in April. Both Vyom and Omya will be participating the National Open Chess Tournament in Las Vegas and the World Open Chess Tournament in Philadelphia this summer.
Also competing and playing well in the Best of the West Kids Chess Championship were fellow Harker students Rohan Rajaram, K (in the kindergarten section), and Mihir Kotbagi and Aidan Okyar, both grade 2 (in the grades 1-2 section).
Last week, sophomore Shaya Zarkesh – via his company, Polyup, which he co-founded last fall – held an event at the upper school campus to help students develop computational thinking skills. “We were holding a workshop for students to explore searching algorithms through a presentation and a set of problems that they worked on in teams,” Zarkesh said.
Polyup teaches students “how to design efficient algorithms to solve computational problems,” he explained. “These are the sort of problems that engineers, physicists and data scientists face every day.” The company achieves this by using chatbots designed to suit the learning needs of each student. Polyup also employs what it calls “playgrounds” on mobile devices to allow users to apply computational thinking concepts to solving a variety of problems.
The company was co-founded by Zarkesh, renowned math professor Yahya Tabesh and entrepreneur Shahin Hedayat. Workshops similar to the one held at Harker have been held by Tabesh at The Nueva School, which Zarkesh said were a “huge success.” More info is available at the company’s website.
The 2016 Physics Bowl wrapped up in May, and Harker placed second in its region in Division II (for second-year physics students) and was ranked 122 worldwide. Each year, about 10,000 students participate in the competition, which consists of a 40-question timed test. Harker students who tested for this year’s Physics Bowl were Akshay Ravoor, Ayush Pancholy, Cindy Wang, Enya Lu, Katherine Tian, Kaushik Shiavakumar, Mathew Mammen, Nishant Ravi and Rithvik Panchapakesan, all grade 9; Edgar Lin, Jimmy Lin, Neelesh Ramachandran, Shaya Zarkesh and Swapnil Garg, all grade 10; and David Zhu, Manan Shah, Misha Ivkov, Peter Wu and Steven Cao, all grade 11.