This past weekend, a team of five Harker students participated in the South/West Bay Area Regional Middle School Science Bowl, taking second place behind Miller Middle School in a final round that was decided by a mere six points. Team Harker – comprising grade 8 students Leon Lu, Akshay Ravoor, Kaushik Shivakumar, Katherine Tian and team captain Alexander Young – suffered only one loss in the early rounds, against Kennedy Middle School, and then defeated four other schools to reach the finals. Because Miller had not yet lost, they had to be defeated twice in the final round. “Harker beat Miller decisively in the final, scoring 108 to 50 points,” said middle school science teacher Vandana Kadam. “However, Miller still had one life and Harker had to go against them again and in this round Miller got an early lead of 54 points over Harker in the first half.” In the second half, Harker claimed a 66-18 lead, but a new rule that introduced a limit of 23 questions per round prevented Harker from moving any further.
“Although Harker came in second, the performance by the team members was a winning one!” Kadam exclaimed. “They did a commendable job in every round. It is not easy to sit through 11 rounds answering the hardest science questions you can find, ranging from Earth science to astronomy to life science to physical science to mathematics.”
Update April 14, 2015 Patrick Lin finished between 9th-12th, qualifying as an alternate!
March 11, 2015 Eight Harker students are among 169 qualifiers in the invitational round of the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad! That round will take place this Thursday, March 12 and the top performers will go on to represent the United States at the International Linguistics Olympiad in Bulgaria in late July. Please congratulate Swapnil Garg, grade 9; David Zhu, grade 10; Emily Pan, grade 11; and Matthew Huang, Rahul Jayaraman, Patrick Lin, Sachin Peddada and Madelyn Wang, all grade 12. For more information: http://www.nacloweb.org/about.php. We’ll update this story as results come in!
On Friday, March 6, students and staff at the lower school had a blast jumping rope and shooting hoops during Jump Rope for Heart, an annual effort to raise money for the American Heart Association.
The event, which raised $6,300, took place throughout the day in the Bucknall gym, as well as on the grades 4-5 blacktop for those who wished to participate in Hoops for Heart instead of – or in addition to – jumping. Staff and students of all grades got in on the action, showing of their double dutch rope moves or hoop skills in support of a worthy cause.
“Holding this event not only engages students in physical activity while empowering them to improve their own health and help others with heart-health issues, but it also raises awareness of heart disease and stroke,” said Jim McGovern, who works in the lower school’s PE department and helped organize the event.
Among the day’s fun happenings were all kinds of jumping rope (short ropes, long roping, Chinese jump ropes), shooting baskets, and playing lightning and other basketball games. At the conclusion of each period, T-shirts, jump ropes and other gifts were raffled off to about a half dozen students. Participants also signed their names on a special heart table to show their support for those afflicted with heart disease.
Computer science students in grades 6 and 8 put their design skills to use, creating their first actual product of the semester for a recent class assignment called the “Name Card Project.”
“The Name Card Project products were accomplished by my students covering the ‘design thinking process’ concept. The students enjoyed working and creating, going through all the steps (empathize, define, ideate, prototype, test) of the process. They are very proud of their products,” reported middle school computer science teacher Sharmila Misra.
The lesson was based on the “design thinking process” used by Stanford Graduate School. The project’s objective was to teach students to empathize with user (customer) requirements by creating a business card to their satisfaction, Misra explained. But, unlike a typical business card that could easily be lost or misplaced, the goal was to create one that would persuade the customer to save it for future use.
During the process, students gathered requirements as to what their user (who were their student partners) would like to know about them. They then made sketches of their ideas, took feedback and created the final product. They made sure their partner was satisfied with the end result before delivering it.
The cards reflected each creator’s personality traits, hobbies and passions, including gymnastics, traveling, math, music and science. They showed their creativity using various methods of communication to portray things like their favorite vacation spots, food, sports and pets.
“I truly enjoyed creating a note card that represented who I am, because I rarely get a chance to harness my imagination and let it propel me in the right direction … in a safe and efficient environment,” said grade 8 computer science student Matthew Hajjar.
Classmate Aryana Far, grade 8, added “getting to interpret our creative abilities into an assignment was pretty fun. I loved that … all of the posters were unique and illustrated aspects of my classmates that I had not seen before.”
“I am very proud of my students’ creativity. I believe these are the best business cards I’ve ever seen,” said Misra. “They speak so eloquently of the [people] they represent. My room looks so alive with them!”
This past weekend, the Diana Nichols Math Invitational brought together 315 students from 15 Bay Area schools. Harker teams earned first place in the grade 6 and grade 7 categories, and placed third in the grade 7 and grade 8 categories. In the grade 6 individual competition, George Wehner took first place and Sidra Xu took third. In grade 7 individual competition, Allison Jia placed second and Grace Huang placed fourth. Cindy Wang and Alexander Young took second and fourth place, respectively, in the individual grade 8 competition. In the estimation contest, in which students guessed the total number of pages contained in a collection of nine books, Jia’s guess of 5,729 pages was amazingly close to the actual number of 5,740.
In other math news, National Assessment & Testing announced on Feb. 24 that Harker had taken fifth place out of 25 participating schools in the 2015 Four-by-Four Competition. This contest involves teams of four solving four problems, challenging each team to not only solve all four problems in 10 minutes, but also to choose which member will handle each question. There are three high school divisions, with placement based on the sum of the grade levels of the team members: Rock, Paper and Scissors.
Stand-out teams in the competition were the Paper division team of Kai-Siang Ang, grade 10, David Zhu, grade 10, Lawrence Li, grade 11, and Allison Wang, grade 11, who placed second. The two-person team of Richard Yi, grade 11, and Swapnil Garg, grade 9, took first place in the Rock division; the team of Ray Yuan Song, grade 10, Justin Jia, grade 10, Rajiv Movva, grade 9, and Michael Kwan, grade 9, tied for fifth in the same division.
Meanwhile, 33 Harker students took the American Mathematics Competition (AMC) exam and qualified for the American Invitational Math Exam (AIME), to be held March 9. The qualifying students were seniors Matthew Huang, Rahul Jayaraman, Andrew Jin, Patrick Lin, David Lin, Cindy Liu, Suzy Lou, Nitya Mani and Ashwath Thirumalai; juniors Lawrence Li, Anthony Luo, Jonathan Ma, Anika Mohindra, Emily Pan, Allison Wang, Alice Wu, Richard Yi and Michael Zhao; sophomores Kai-Siang Ang, Steven Cao, Misha Ivkov, Justin Jia, Winnie Li, Peter Wu and David Zhu; and freshmen Jerry Chen, Swapnil Garg, Jimmy Lin, Joanna Lin, Edgar Lin, Rajiv Movva, Shaya Zarkesh and Randy Zhao.
Jennifer Walrod, Harker’s director of global education, can hardly believe a decade has gone by since the upper school launched its exchange program with students from the Collège de Gambach in Fribourg, Switzerland.
“The first one occurred in the school year 2004-05!” enthused Walrod.
Mid-February heralded the beginning of this year’s program, with the arrival of 11 Swiss exchange students and their two chaperones.
“New friendships formed quickly between the grades 10 and 11 Harker students and the Swiss buddies they hosted,” recalled Walrod.
The Collège de Gambach is a secondary school under the authority of Switzerland’s department of public education and cultural affairs. The school is located near an important economic and cultural border between German and French Switzerland.
While visiting, the Swiss students lived with their Harker hosts and their families, allowing them to become fully immersed in American life. They enjoyed observing various classes, as well as sightseeing in the Bay Area and beyond.
After going on a tour of the upper school with their Harker pals, the exchange students observed and participated in classes such as dance, debate, art, chemistry, drama, poetry and American history. They also made Native American dream catchers with Keith Hirota, middle school social studies teacher and K-8 department chair. Another highlight for the Swiss students was taking an American cuisine cooking class at Cucina Bambini, a local hands-on cooking school.
Grade 11 Harker student and program participant Daphne Yang said it was the little things – like hanging out at the mall and talking over coffee at Starbucks – that she remembers most fondly about time spent with her Swiss buddy.
“The Swiss visit was really a learning experience,” Yang said. “I got to interact with people from a different background and culture than I am used to, and I had fun picking up bits and pieces of their lifestyles as they were immersed in mine. It made me realize how much I enjoy learning not only other languages, but also the culture that comes with it. … With all the fun we’ve had, I can’t wait to visit Switzerland in the summer to learn more!”
One thing that really interested Yang was that the Swiss buddies had never seen a school bus before. She found it “very cute” that they were awed by the yellowness of the vehicle and took pictures and selfies in front of it.
At the end of their special time together, Harker students and their new Swiss buddies said their goodbyes over a farewell party in the campus bistro. Come June, they will be reunited, this time in Switzerland. The upcoming adventure will afford the Harker contingent the opportunity to immerse themselves in Swiss culture, brush up on their language skills and explore the country’s vast natural beauty.
Ken Barber, an upper school substitute teacher who assisted Walrod during the Swiss visit, said the best thing about watching the interactions between the Harker and Swiss students was the development of close relationships. “Their interactions seemed to be warm and genuine,” he recalled.
Diana Moss, upper school Spanish teacher and Class of 2015 dean, “loved hosting the Swiss chaperones, Cyril and Ole. They were enthusiastic about experiencing every aspect of American culture, including vinyl records, old cars, motorcycles and country music. They were particularly excited to see my husband’s ‘man space’ garage packed full of tools and choice gadgets, saying it was exactly the image they had of a typical American home. We engaged in long and lively discussions about culture, language and schools, and our home felt very quiet after they’d left. I know we’ve established a friendship that will endure – exactly the goal of a cultural exchange!” said Moss.
Winter sports wrap up and spring sports gain traction!
Basketball
The boys crushed Del Mar High School 71-38 in a second-round game in front of a loud and supportive crowd at Blackford, thanks to senior Sriv Irrinki’s 20 points and senior Eric Holt’s 15 points – including a breakaway dunk! However, the boys dropped their CCS quarterfinal game 52-45 to No. 4 seed Pacific Grove at the Kaiser Arena in Santa Cruz on Saturday, despite 19 points by Holt and 12 by Irrinki. The team ends the season with a 16-10 overall record, a fourth-place league finish and a CCS Academic Championship.
The girls’ season also came to a close last week as they lost a first-round CCS game at Carmel High. The team finished in third place in league this year with a 12-12 overall record.
Wrestling
Sophomore Davis Howard represented Harker at the CCS wrestling tournament this past weekend, losing two matches against tough opponents.
Golf
The boys placed eighth out of 24 teams last Monday at Lone Tree Golf Course in Antioch. The team competes three days this week. On Wednesday, they tee off against rival Sacred Heart Prep.
Track and Field
The track and field season began Saturday in the rain at Christopher High School. The team toughed it out in the adverse weather, winning seven events and setting six stadium records, thanks to freshmen Grace Koonmen and Aadi Ghildiyal, sophomore Niki Iyer, and juniors Alex Dellar and Calvin Kocienda, and the mile-relay team of Koonman, Iyer, Dellar and sophomore Winnie Li.
Lacrosse
The girls lost to Burlingame last week. They will look to bounce back at Davis Field when they play their home opener against Gunn High School.
Baseball
The Eagles split their two games last week, including a 12-1 blowout victory over North Valley Baptist. They play an away game Friday.
Softball: The softball team starts its season this week.
Tennis: The team starts its season this week.
Volleyball: The boys begin their season next week.
Spring sports start this week, with baseball, boys golf and girls lacrosse kicking off the season! Winter sports are not quite over, though, as Harker has two teams moving on to the next stage of competition.
Basketball
Both the boys and girls teams are headed to the CCS Tournament!
The boys beat both Priory and Crystal Springs last week to earn the No. 5 seed and a first-round bye. The 15-9 Eagles will kick off the tournament by hosting Del Mar High at 7 p.m. on Thursday at Blackford in a second-round game. Meanwhile, after finishing the year with a 12-11 record, the girls travel to Carmel High School today for a first-round match-up. Come cheer on the teams as they make a run for the finals!
The boys wrapped up the year with a 10-4-2 record after defeating Priory 4-2 and then playing league champion Sacred Heart to an impressive 0-0 tie. Congrats to the Eagles on an outstanding season!
Feb. 23, 2015 Glenn Reddy, grade 12, and Logan Drazovich, grade 11, are in Indianapolis to make a presentation to the CEO and executive management team of Finish Line Inc. They were accompanied by Juston Glass, director of Harker’s business and entrepreneurship program. Reddy and Drazovich are one of three finalist teams nationwide competing as part of the DECA Finish Line Challenge. The students will advise the executives on how the company can best utilize and improve upon their omni-channel retailing strategy and company branding. Here’s an article describing the event and the video Reddy and Drazovich submitted as part of the competition. Go DECA Eagles! http://www.decadirect.org/January-2015/DECA-Announces-Finalists-in-2014-2015-Finish-Line-Challenge/
Grade 2 chess enthusiast Vyom Vidyarthi has been very busy the past few months. On Feb. 8, he took first place out of 84 competitors in his age group at the 2015 CalNorth Youth Chess Championship, winning all five of his matches. In November, he was ranked No. 66 among the top 100 chess players in the country in the Age 7 and Under category. He ranked at No. 94 in the same category in September.
In November, Bhavya Srinivasan, grade 2, received a letter from the White House after writing to President Barack Obama to express her concerns about smoking. The letter, which included a signed photo of the Obama family, thanked Bhavya for writing and told her about some of the recent initiatives to improve and maintain the health of America’s youth.