Middle school cross country runners have posted some impressive results, reports coach Scott Graham. In the first meet of the year, held at Hyde Middle School, Alexandra Dellar, Gr. 6, placed fourth. Gr. 7 girls Alyssa Amick and Gabi Gupta took fourth and eighth, respectively. Claudia Tischler, Gr. 8, was tenth for the girls and Nicholas Navarro, Gr. 8, placed fifth for the boys.
The team continued to show strength in all grades at the Rolling Hills meet, where Dellar placed third and Calvin Kocienda, Gr. 6, took fourth. Amick came in fourth, and Corey Gonzalez, Gr. 7, was seventh. For the eighth graders, Tischler was first for the girls and Navarro took seventh place for the boys. There are just three more regular season meets to go, so come out and cheer on the team! The next meet is Thurs., Sept. 24, at JD Morgan Park in nearby Campbell.
Shreya Indukuri and Daniela Lapidous, both Gr. 10, are two of 25 climate youth leaders selected to attend the Governor’s Global Climate Summit co-hosted by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sept. 30-Oct. 2.
Alexis Ringwald, co-founder of Valence Energy, will introduce Lapidous and Indukuri and their project on smart meters and energy software that reduce energy consumption. Ringwald co-founded her company with Raju Indukuri, Shreya’s father, and two others, and has been mentoring the girls as they developed their project.
Governors from a number of states will attend, as will the administrator of the EPA and other high-ranking government officials. Governors from Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria and the heads of the United Nations Development Programme and other organizations will be in the audience.
At the event, keynote speeches will be delivered by Tony Blair, Thomas Friedman and Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, chair of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Harker has been invited to send a representative to the event.
“This is an incredible opportunity for Shreya and Daniela,” said Ringwald. “They are being recognized for their leadership on the climate issue in deploying these smart energy solutions in their school.”
Shreya Indukuri and Daniela Lapidous, both Gr. 10, are two of 25 climate youth leaders selected to attend the Governor’s Global Climate Summit co-hosted by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sept. 30-Oct. 2.
Alexis Ringwald, co-founder of Valence Energy, will introduce Lapidous and Indukuri and their project on smart meters and energy software that reduce energy consumption. Ringwald co-founded her company with Raju Indukuri, Shreya’s father, and two others, and has been mentoring the girls as they developed their project.
Governors from a number of states will attend, as will the administrator of the EPA and other high-ranking government officials. Governors from Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria and the heads of the United Nations Development Programme and other organizations will be in the audience.
At the event, keynote speeches will be delivered by Tony Blair, Thomas Friedman and Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, chair of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Harker has been invited to send a representative to the event.
“This is an incredible opportunity for Shreya and Daniela,” said Ringwald. “They are being recognized for their leadership on the climate issue in deploying these smart energy solutions in their school.”
Shreya Indukuri and Daniela Lapidous, both Gr. 10, are two of 25 climate youth leaders selected to attend the Governor’s Global Climate Summit co-hosted by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sept. 30-Oct. 2.
Alexis Ringwald, co-founder of Valence Energy, will introduce Lapidous and Indukuri and their project on smart meters and energy software that reduce energy consumption. Ringwald co-founded her company with Raju Indukuri, Shreya’s father, and two others, and has been mentoring the girls as they developed their project.
Governors from a number of states will attend, as will the administrator of the EPA and other high-ranking government officials. Governors from Indonesia, Brazil, Nigeria and the heads of the United Nations Development Programme and other organizations will be in the audience.
At the event, keynote speeches will be delivered by Tony Blair, Thomas Friedman and Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri, chair of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Harker has been invited to send a representative to the event.
“This is an incredible opportunity for Shreya and Daniela,” said Ringwald. “They are being recognized for their leadership on the climate issue in deploying these smart energy solutions in their school.”
Each year the Curbside Crazies bring out wacky behavior to encourage families to attend the Harker Family and Alumni Picnic, themed Picnic in the Pines this year, to be held Oct. 11. Here are a few shots from the curb at the lower school. Enjoy!
On Sept. 18, Raji Swaminathan’s Gr. 7 science students performed an experiment in speed, velocity and motion, and also studied Newton’s laws of motion. “This lab helps students to investigate motion such as walking at a constant velocity away or towards a sensor, speeding up or slowing down and standing at rest,” Swaminathan said. “They use a Vernier motion detector and LoggerPro software to achieve this.” Students first made a prediction of different types of motion graphically and tried to simulate their predictions on the computer and see how closely they matched. “This lab helps them to understand that on a position-versus-time graph, a straight line going up or down represents constant velocity, a horizontal line is when a student is at rest and a curve represents changing speed.” The students also learned that walking more quickly creates a steeper slope on the graph, which helps them to understand that the slope of the position-versus-time graph indicates speed.
[Update] George Washington University freshman Candace Silva-Martin ’09 has been named Atlantic 10 ConferenceDefensive Player of the Week, marking the second straight A-10 weekly award for Silva-Martin who garnered co-Defensive Player of the Week and Rookie of the Week honors Sept. 14 (see below). Silva-Martin earned the new honor after she totalled 65 digs for the week; averaging 5.91 digs per set including a match-high 35 digs in GW’s 3-2 victory over host Towson to capture the Towson Invitational title Saturday. She leads the A-10 in digs with 250 for a 5.43 digs-per-set average. Silva-Martin’s stats for the week: three matches, 11 sets, 65 digs (5.91 digs per set), two kills in two attempts for a 1.000 hitting percentage, three assists and four service aces for six points.
Sept. 14, 2009 Candace Silva-Martin ’09, a member of the Harker championship volleyball team of 2007, now a freshman at George Washington University, was named both Atlantic 10 Rookie and Co-Defensive Player of the Week by the league.
Silva-Martin, the team’s only listed libero, earned the honors after amassing 78 digs helping lead GW to a 2-1 record in the Villanova Classic, where she faced her former teammate, Kristina Bither ’09, on the Villanova team – Villanova won the GW-Villanova match at that event.
Silva-Martin has been named to consecutive all-tournament teams in each of the last two weeks following the Diet Coke Classic at the University of Minnesota on Sept. 4-5, and following last weekend’s Villanova Classic.
In the Colonials’ 3-2 victory over Princeton at Villanova, Silva-Martin recorded her career-high 34 digs – she has double-figure digs in all nine matches of 2009. Her stats for the week: three matches, 13 sets, 78 digs (6 digs per set), five assists and three service aces for three points.
On Sept. 16, Chris Nikoloff, head of school, and Evan Barth, dean of studies, invited students to discuss academic integrity face-to-face during lunch hour in the Saratoga quad. At the previous day’s assembly, Nikoloff encouraged students to drop in to ask questions and share their concerns on the topic, which was also addressed during the matriculation ceremony at the beginning of the year.
The Gr. 3 park day on Sept. 12 was organized by parents and grade level coordinators Lalitha Kumar (Aneesha, Gr. 3 and Arjun, Gr. 8 ) and Jeanette Hajjar (Grace, Gr. 2and Matthew, Gr. 3). The afternoon at John D. Morgan Park in Campbell was filled with smiling kids playing on the playground and field. It was a relaxing afternoon after a busy first few weeks of school.
Alumna Shabnam Aggarwal ’03 paid a special visit on Sept. 15 to The Harker Upper School to chat with students about life after high school. Aggarwal attended Carnegie Mellon University and spent a summer in India as an intern for Microsoft. She went to work for Merrill Lynch after finishing college, then left for Cambodia to work for a self-sustaining non-governmental organization (NGO) that provides training in data entry and English language skills to disadvantaged and disabled Cambodians.
Aggarwal is preparing to begin the next stage of her career in India, where she will work on a project developing applications for lower-end mobile phones that will be used to teach English to Indians without access to important educational resources.
“It was really exciting to hear about how much they supported what I’m doing,” Aggarwal said of Harker’s interest in her recent activities. Her main goal was to communicate to students the merits of wandering off the beaten path. “Mostly what I’d really like to accomplish is just making it apparent that not following the cookie-cutter life is not the end of the world.”
After receiving her engineering degree and working with Merrill Lynch in New York, Aggarwal chose to put her expertise to humanitarian ends. “Even after I did the engineering degree I said, ‘Well, I like engineering, I’m good at it, but … I don’t want to be sitting behind a computer in Silicon Valley for the rest of my life,’” she recalled. “I really knew I wanted to go to India. I knew I wanted to be in the developing world.”
She said the idea dawned on her while training for a marathon. “You put things in perspective and you say, ‘Wait, let’s back up. Let’s look at the bigger picture. I really can do what I put my mind to, and I could accomplish something that I really cared about.’”
Aggarwal believes that people who choose to acquire engineering or other scientific degrees can still use their skills to have a positive impact on impoverished areas. “I think Harker students definitely think about the future a lot, and I’d be interested to see who’s interested in that profession in the NGO world, or even engineering, or how you can use your technology world to make a difference,” she said. “When you’re young you have that passion for it and you’re idealistic enough to think that it’s possible that we can change the world.”