This summer, several Harker students chose to go “back to school” to help out as staff members at the Harker Summer Camp on the lower school campus.
Anna Levine, who will enter grade 10 in the fall, decided to join the staff because she hopes to one day work with children. “For many years now I have wanted to become a teacher,” she said. “Working at Harker is a wonderful opportunity to gain experience and knowledge about being an educator.” Her responsibilities included mapping out the weekly schedule for her group and keeping the campers safe as well as mentally and physical engaged. “And of course, having fun,” she added.
Other students, such as rising junior Katherine Woodruff, returned to Harker Summer Camp for a second or third time. “I really enjoy working with kids, and having enjoyed it last year, I decided to do it again. It’s a great opportunity,” said Woodruff, who spent last summer as a counselor in training (CIT). “I enjoy working with kids and helping them to develop character. Through this, I develop my own character.”
For David Lindars, starting grade 11 in the fall, being on summer staff presents an opportunity to have a positive influence on a young life. “It’s so rewarding to grow close with the campers, teach them something they haven’t learned and make an impact on their life,” said the student, who spent last summer at Harker as a CIT and this summer watched after campers in grades 1-5. “This job puts me in a position where I’m able to learn how to discipline and lead a group of people.”
Over the summer, Kaushik Sankar, grade 7, participated in the Tech Museum’s Tech Challenge event, where he and his team “Inception” won the Most Reliable Device Performance award. This year’s challenge, which had nearly 1,200 competitors, had each team collect garbage from an artificial ocean without harming any of the sea life. Each team created a different device to achieve the task. Notably, Sankar performed well despite having to rush to his final rehearsal for the middle school production of “Beauty and the Beast.” Congratulations to Sankar and his teammates!
This story was originally printed in the March 2008 issue of Harker News.
Now in its third year, the Harker Research Symposium showcases student research projects to inspire students and give them a chance to present their hardest work in a scientific environment.
Projects on display will include those of Harker’s three Intel Science Talent Search (ISTS) semifinalists,seniors Frank Wang (“The Effect of Oxygenated Diesel Fuels on Emissions”), Thomas Roxlo (“Potential Clinical Applications of Celastrol”) and Senan Ebrahim (“Characterization and Synthesis of Silk III”).
Last year, presenters included Harker ISTS winners from the class of 2007, Adam Creasman, Carolyn Wang and Arkajit Dey, as well as other students from all three campuses. Other speakers included Harker alumni, students from Lynbrook High School and Monte Vista High School.
Symposium coordinator and science department chair Anita Chetty noted that the symposium is an opportunity for parents and middle schoolers to become familiar with the Harker research program and to find out what the student researchers really do.
In addition, the displays help budding researchers understand how to enter a research competition,what exactly a paper submitted to a competition looks like and what an oral presentation sounds like.
Chetty noted that at the end of the afternoon, workshops will be run on technical writing, internships and research competitions. Workshops can be attended by freshmen, sophomores and juniors and any interested parents. See the Research Web page for details on the workshops.
“The conference is also a way for our alumni doing research at post-secondary institutions to bring that knowledge back to us,” said Chetty. Three Harker alumni will present at this year’s symposium: Ankur Gupta ’06, currently at Carnegie Mellon University, Shilpa Vadodaria ’05, now at Columbia University, and Samantha Levinson ’06, UC Santa Barbara. “Finally, we have brought a very important element of the research process into the symposium in the form of companies that show the connection between research, everyday life, the economy and career opportunities for researchers,” said Chetty. “Everyone in the Harker community is welcome. I think everyone will be amazed at the quality of these presentations and the composure shown by these young researchers!”
Symposium Keynote Speker is Founder of Award-Winning Education Program
Geoff Green is the founder and director of the Canadian-based organization Students on Ice Expeditions (www.studentsonice.com), an award-winning educational program that has taken over 800 students, teachers and scientists from around the world on expeditions to both the Arctic and the Antarctic, according to his biography. The goal of the project is to give the world’s youth a heightened understanding and respect for our planet’s global ecosystem, and the inspiration to protect it. In 2005, Green received a Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from the U.S. Congress for his work with youth and the environment. He has lead scores of expeditions to the polar caps for a variety of organizations, including Discovery Channel, World Wildlife Fund, National Audubon and the Smithsonian Institution, and has been a guest speaker at the Royal Geographical Society in London and the Smithsonian Institution.
This story was originally posted online in November 2007.
Four Harker seniors have been named semifinalists in the Siemens Competition. Semifinalists receive a special recognition package; their names will be announced in a full-page advertisement in USA Today and be posted on the Siemens Foundation website. The Harker semifinalists and the titles of their research papers are:
Hassan Shenasa
Soliton Resonance: A Novel High Frequency Power Combining Method
Senan Ebrahim
Properties of Silk III Fibroin at the air water interface
Thomas Roxlo
Small Molecule Induction of Heat Shock Response: Cytoprotective effect and Potential Clinical Applications of Celastrol
Sushant Sundaresh
Toward Nitrogen Fixing Symbioses with Mutual Consent
Each year the Siemens Foundation, in partnership with the College Board, runs the Siemens Competition to promote excellence by encouraging students to undertake individual or team research projects. Harker seniors who conduct research during a summer internship are encouraged to write a 20-page technical paper and enter the competition at the end of September.
In the initial judging phase, entries are received and processed by the College Board. The projects are “blind read” by a national panel of scientists who have expertise related to the project being reviewed and the papers are judged solely on the merits of the written research report. From this initial judging, up to 300 outstanding projects are selected as semifinalists.
Students new to the middle school were brought together on Aug. 11 at the upper school campus to take part in a special welcoming event. The students were divided into their houses (Praestantia, Scientia, Beneficium and Constantia) and participated in a series of contests to win spirit points for those houses. The first contest had each house coming up with a cheer, followed by a ring toss, jump rope, splash basketball, musical hoops and Frisbee golf.
After the contests, the students all enjoyed eating pizza in the warm midday sun.
A new summer activity program at the upper school campus offered a wide variety of things for middle school students to do this year.
Prior to this year’s program, middle school students were grouped together with younger students at the lower school campus. “The idea really came from the kids. In previous years, they didn’t want to be in these little groups the whole day,” said Keith Hirota, who directed the program. They also wanted more activities specifically geared toward their age group.
The new program offered activities such as swimming, games, crafts and three-point basketball shooting competitions to the students, whose classes ended at 11:30 a.m. Students also had the option of taking an art class or even studying in the library.
Each week of the program had a theme around which special activities were held. For instance, during Harry Potter Week, a game of Quidditch was organized, and during Fiesta Week, kitchen staff members showed the students how to make various kinds of salsa.
Students were still able to spend time in groups, and participated in various events (such as swimming laps) that allowed them to win points for their groups. At the end of the week, the group with the most points would win prizes. “Most of it revolved around food,” Hirota joked.
According to Hirota, students that were in the program reported enjoying the freedom that it offered, and he is hopeful for another successful summer next year.
Enlight’ning, a magazine published every spring at the middle school which showcases artwork, poetry and prose created entirely by middle school students, has been awarded a gold medal by the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA).
The judges commented on the exceptional prose, citing, among others, eighth grader Samyukta Yagati’s “Snack Cart,” which they called “a gem. It’s syntactically advanced and strongly plotted.”
The poetry was praised as well – eighth grader Cindy Liu’s poem “Painting” was in fact called, “one of the best two pieces here,” and was noted for its “vibrant imagery.”
And for their artwork, Carissa Chen, grade 6 and Kevin Ke, grade 7, were told their pieces were “strikingly precocious” and “hilarious and well-executed,” respectively.
The magazine scored a comprehensive 823 points out of a possible 1,000.
The CSPA was founded in an effort to improve student publications by providing members with an annual written review of the previous year’s publications. Harker’s “Enlight’ning” has continually received high marks.
[Update Aug. 15, 2011)
The cast and crew of “Pippin” wrapped up their Festival Fringe experience with a workshop with the cast of the American improv troupe “Baby Wants Candy.” BWC asks for the title of a fictional show from its audience each night and improvises an hour-long musical, complete with songs, scenes, plot and choreography. Harker and another high school group were able to have a private workshop with the cast of BWC, who taught the students the tricks of the improv trade!
[Update Aug. 11, 2011]
The “Pippin” cast and crew are working all the angles at the Festival Fringe in Edinburgh, Scotland. Read all about it on the Talon news site!
Aug. 4, 2011
The award-winning cast of “Pippin” arrived in London yesterday and will be headed to Edinburgh today (this evening, United Kingdom time) for their performance at this year’s Fringe Festival. The group has already had some fun in London, attending an acting workshop at the Globe Theatre and attending a performance of “Billy Elliot the Musical.”
Derek Kameda, upper school registrar, recently joined the College Board’s Consultant Advisory Panel, which was established to “review policies, procedures and activities related to the management and support of all College Board consultants,” Kameda said.
He now serves as one of 28 College Board advanced placement coordinator consultants. At this year’s AP annual conference in San Francisco, he provided his expertise to AP coordinators, giving a workshop on how to improve the administration of AP exams and offering individual mentoring to AP coordinators at another workshop.
Prior to being invited to join this panel, Kameda had been on the board that organized the 2010 AP Annual Conference in Washington, D.C.
Alexandra Mattraw Rosenboom, an award-winning poetess and Harker English teacher, has a Harker-inspired poem included in “Black and White,” the summer 2011 exhibition of New York’s Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition. The show, which opened July 16, is in a huge Civil War-era coffee warehouse, and Rosenboom’s poem, “Inside the Construction: The Brain,” is mounted and displayed at the entrance. “The poem was inspired by notes I took during our February faculty retreat,” said Rosenboom. The guest speaker at the retreat was a neuroscientist who discussed the way we develop thoughts. “Because my poem explores how humans think in black and white before our brain processes things in color, it worked quite well with the show’s theme,” she said. The show will run on weekends until Aug. 21. In addition, Rosenboom has two poems in the latest number of American Letters & Commentary, issue 22. More information on Rosenboom and her poetry can be found at her website.
Excerpt from “Inside the Construction: The Brain” by Alexandra Mattraw Rosenboom:
“… Survival in context as the reason for memory, I mistake your finger for mine. The fire hydrant for fire. Because periphery only believes in movement, city snow ticks us through signaled streets. Power lines thicken tulle fog. Colors appear but we only see in black and white first : The perfidy of an oil blackened road ….”