The California Junior Classical League Convention came to Blackford in late March for a weekend of toga-clad competition. In the end, Harker students graced many top spots. US participants tied for first place overall and shared second place in the HS Advanced Certamen (Latin quiz bowl) category.
US students had many stand-out individual performances. Brandon Araki, Gr. 11, earned first in Vocabulary and second in Ancient Geography. Araki also took second in Certamen, as did classmates Monisha Dilip and Alex Han and senior Alex Hu. Han also finished first in Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations and Latin derivatives. Maggie Woods, Gr. 11, took first in Reading Comprehension and Pentathlon. Sophia Gilman, Gr. 12, finished second in Chess and fourth in Advanced Reading Comprehension, while Sohini Khan, Gr. 11, came in second in Advanced Grammar and fourth in Advanced Reading Comprehension.
At HS Level Three, Harker swept Sight-Reading Latin Prose with freshmen Prag Batra, Jessica Lin, Ramya Rangan earning first, second and third, respectively. Similarly, Rangan, Alexander Hsu, Gr. 9 and April Luo, Gr. 10, swept Advanced Reading Comprehension. Batra also earned third in Dramatic Interpretation of Poetry. Lin took first in Roman Daily Life and fourth in Roman History and Latin Derivatives. Rangan earned third in Dramatic Interpretation of Prose and fourth in Advanced Grammar, Phillip Oung, Gr. 9, placed second in Mythology while Christophe Pellissier, Gr. 9, placed third in Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations.
Eric Henshall, Gr. 9 and Daniel Nguyen, Gr. 12, took third and fourth places in High School Level One Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations, respectively.
The MS also had a very successful weekend, taking first place overall, second in the Scrapbook contest and third in MS Advanced Certamen. Oishi Banerjee, Gr. 7, was the big winner, earning first place in all individual categories: Arts, Academic and Combined. Banerjee placed first in Original Poetry and Advanced Daily Life, second in Advanced Latin Oratory, Dramatic Interpretation and Mythology, and third in That’s Entertainment and Modern Myth. Banerjee even placed in the high-school level Vocal contest, taking third. Her team, which included classmates Kevin Duraiswamy and Brian Tuan, placed third in the MS Advanced Team Certamen.
Jenny Chen, Gr. 8, took first in the Girls 400 and 100-meter track races, and tennis, tied for second Advanced Reading Comprehension and took second in Advanced Grammar.
Kevin Duraiswamy, Gr. 7, took first in the small models contest, won second in Advanced Reading Comprehension and Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations, and third in Advanced Latin Oratory.
Zina Jawadi, Gr. 7, earned first in Advanced Latin Oratory, second in MS 1 Sight Latin Reading, and third in the Girls 400 and 100-meter track races.
Eighth grader Suchita Nety’s team won first in the Open Certamen, second in the Greeting Cards and Advanced Pentathlon, and third in Advanced Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations. Madhuri Nori, Gr. 6, earned first in Dramatic Interpretation, third in Jewelry and MS 1 Reading Comprehension, and an Honorable Mention in MS 1 Mythology.
Ashvin Swaminathan, Gr. 8, took first in HS Level 2 Latin Oratory, MS Advanced Vocabulary and Advanced Grammar. His team also earned second in HS Level 2 Team Certamen with Gr. 8 teammates Pranav Sharma (winner of the MS Advanced Pentathlon and second in HS Level 2 Latin Oratory) and Richard Fan, who earned second and third spots in MS Advanced Ancient Geography and Advanced History, respectively.
Anika Ayyar, Gr. 7, won first in Dramatic Interpretation, third in the Team Certamen and Honorable Mentions in Daily Life and Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations.
Molly Wolfe, Gr. 8, took first in the essay contest, second in dance and third in Advanced Vocabulary.
Annirudh Ankola, Gr. 6, won first for Male Costume, second in Chess and third in Traditional Photography.
Angela Gu, Gr. 6, took first in MS Level 1 Mythology and Urvi Gupta, Gr. 7, placed first in Advanced Reading Comprehension. Her team took second in the Open Certamen.
In addition to taking second place in HS Level 2 Team Certamen with Swaminathan, Fan and Pranav Sharma, eighth grader Anuj Sharma (no relation) finished first in MS Advanced Mottoes, Quotes and Abbreviations.
Helena Huang, Gr. 7, took first in Piano and Rasika Raghavan, Gr. 6, placed first in Arts – Miscellaneous. Aadyot Bhatnagar, Gr. 6, earned first in Vocabulary and second in Derivatives. To add to his first place finish in Advanced Ancient Geography, Nik Datuashvilli, Gr. 8, took first in MS Open Certamen with teammates Suchita Nety, Gr. 8, and Nicky Semenza, Gr. 7.
In Multimedia, Simran Singh, Gr. 6, took second and an Honorable Mention in Level 1 Reading Comprehension. Seventh grader Allison Chang took second in Individual Scrapbook, while Michael Cheng, Gr. 8, was third in Advanced Grammar. Eighth graders Eric Zhang earned second in Advanced History, and Shannon Su received an Honorable Mention for Advanced Grammar. Other Honorable Mentions went to Richard Min, Gr. 7, for Advanced Mythology, Laura Pedrotti, Gr. 8, for Advanced Derivatives, Sahana Rangarajan, Gr. 6, for Level 1 Derivatives and Sahithya Prakash, Gr. 7 for Level 1 Reading Comprehension.
The lower, middle and upper school orchestras came together for a special spring concert on April 10 in the Bucknall gym. It was a special night for each orchestra, being the final performance of the school year.
The Bucknall orchestra bookended their set with George Frideric Handel’s “La Rejouissance” and “Hallelujah Chorus,” in addition to performing the third movement of Gustav Mahler’s “Symphony No. 1.” The Gr. 6 orchestra performed the first movement of Mozart’s “Jupiter Symphony” and “The Overture to Barber of Seville” by Gioachino Rossini. The entire MS orchestra then performed “Bartered Bride” by Bedrich Smetana, followed by the Gr. 7 and Gr. 8 orchestra’s performances of pieces by Mozart, Edward Elgar, Antonin Dvorák and Johannes Brahms.
Fresh off of their trip to New York to perform at Alice Tully Hall, the US orchestra performed their renditions of Edvard Grieg’s “Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46” and “Dance of the Tumblers” by Nikolay Rimsky Korsakoff, as well as pieces by Aaron Copland and Smetana that were performed in New York.
The yearly Synopsys Silicon Valley Science and Technology Championship, held March 18 in downtown San Jose, was once again a big success for US and MS Harker students.
Denzil Sikka, Gr. 12, was one of two Top Senior High Award winners from Harker, earning a Dr. Paul Callahan Technical Paper Award for having one of the best technical papers shown at the fair dealing with physical and biological sciences. Her paper, titled “Aging is Predictable – Biomarkers of Aging: Age Prediction by Use of Mathematical Models of Biomarkers” also netted her a $100 prize. She also received a $200 cash prize for winning the Intel Excellence in Computer Science Award.
Harker’s second Top Senior High Award winner was Isaac Madan, Gr. 10, for his paper “The Impact of the Planar Cell Polarity Pathway Function on the Structure of the Cerebellum.” Madan took home the Grand Prize Alternate in biological sciences and earned a trip to the state science fair.
Madan and Haran Sivakumar, Gr. 11, who also earned a trip to the state science fair, both placed first in the Medicine/Health/Gerontology category. Rahul Ahuja, Gr. 12, earned a second place award in the Individual Project subcategory and received an honorable mention from the U.S. Army.
Harker also had a number of winners in the competition’s Computers/Mathematics category. Andrew Stanek, Gr. 12, took first place in the Individual Project subcategory, and received second place in the Technical Paper subcategory. Senior Dominique Dabija was given a second place award in both the Technical Paper and Individual Project subcategories.
In the Biochemistry/Microbiology category, Elena Madan, Gr. 12, Alex Han, Gr. 11 and Peter Gao, Gr. 10, were all second place award winners for Individual Project. Madan also received a $200 cash prize from the Palo Alto chapter of the Association for Women in Science. Aaron Lin, Gr. 12, was awarded $100 and an Achievement Certificate from the Santa Clara County Biotech Education Partnership.
Ramya Rangan and Kathryn Siegel, both Gr. 9, won an honorable mention for their team project in the Botany category, while Emily Carr, Gr. 12, was awarded a certificate and a medal from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for her project in the Environmental Sciences category. Senior Anand Natarajan’s paper, “Spatial Control of Gene Expression using CT-guided Collimated X-rays to Modulate Transcription,” earned him a first place award in the Technical Paper category, with fellow senior Baladitya Yellapragada taking a second place award in the same category for the paper “Virtual Worlds for CPR.”
Lastly, but not leastly, Jerry Sun, Gr. 10, earned a first place award for Technical Paper in Zoology for his work, “Cinnamomum Verum Bark Essential Oils Affect on the Movement of Ants.”
On the MS side, students came up big in the Physics category. Vikas Bhetanabhotla, Gr. 7, took home a second place award in Individual Project, and also received a Certificate of Achievement from the NASA Ames Research center, as well as a VIP visit to the NASA Ames facility and an honorable mention from the United States Coast Guard. Fellow seventh graders Allen Cheng and Daniel Pak also hauled in a second place award for their team project, which received an honorable mention from ASM International, formerly known as the American Society for Metals. Another seventh grader, Brian Tuan, received an honorable mention for Individual Project, as did Michaela Kastelman, Gr. 8, who also hauled in a $100 cash prize and earned a $100 donation to the MS science department from Trimble Navigation.
Ashvin Swaminathan, Gr. 8, was the winner of a first place award in the Individual Project area of Biochemistry/Microbiology, while Jennifer Dai, Gr. 7, and Suchita Nety, Gr. 8, received honorable mentions for Individual Project in the same category.
In Engineering, Varun Gudapati, Gr. 8, was the winner of a second place award for Individual Project and received the first place award from ASM International, which included a $100 cash prize. Vikram Sundar, Gr. 7, was another Engineering award recipient, receiving an honorable mention from ASM International and a HP35s scientific calculator from Hewlett-Packard.
Ramakrishnan Menon and Benjamin Yang, both Gr. 8, received the second place award for Team Project in Environmental Sciences, and both also received a certificate of achievement from the American Meteorological Society.
In the Medicine/Health/Gerontology category, eighth grader Jacqueline Wang was a Top Junior High Award Winner, winning an Isabelle Stone Award for Best Biological Science Projects, which included a plaque, a $100 cash prize and a trip to the State Science Fair. Wang also earned a first place award for Individual Project, a certificate from the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge and a Board of Directors Award in the Middle School category from the Santa Clara Valley Science and Engineering Fair Association. Zina Jawadi, Gr. 7, received an honorable mention. Nikhil Baradwaj, Gr. 8, was given a Certificate of Merit from the American Psychological Association.
Elsewhere, Paulomi Bhattacharya, Gr. 8, received a first place award for Individual Project in Earth Space/Sciences. Bhattacharya was also invited to the State Science Fair and the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge, and received a Special Award for Geoscience Excellence from the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the Association for Women Geoscientists.
For the school’s performance at the fair, Harker received an Outstanding School Award, and US biology teacher Kate Schafer won an Outstanding Teacher Award. Congratulations, obviously, are due all around!
The 13th annual Ogre Awards on March 26 were a typically fantastical affair, featuring Harker’s entire Gr. 2 class portraying characters and creatures from the folklore of cultures worldwide which students spent the year exploring with library director Enid Davis.
Before the show got underway, MS librarian Bernie Morrissey and US librarian Susan Smith warmed up the crowd by singing “In Your Folk Attire,” a parody of the Irving Berlin song “Easter Parade,” one of many songs reenvisioned by Ogre Awards director Davis.
Other faculty guest appearances included a singing cameo by Laura Lang-Ree, K-Gr. 12 per forming arts chair; Brian Larsen, K-Gr. 12 production manager, appearing as the giant from “Jack and the Beanstalk”; and LS Spanish and creative writing teacher Anita Gilbert singing “Life is Just a Bowl of Porridge.”
This year’s story relayed the plight of three princes, each in search of a wife. They discover their mates by firing an arrow from the castle and traveling to the location wherein it landed. The first two princes have no problem finding the ideal partner, but the third arrow happens upon a swamp, where the final prince finds a frog waiting for him.
Each of the potential wives is charged with three special tasks to impress the royal family, and the pure-hearted third prince allows the frog to carry them out. To his delight, the frog is more than able to meet his family’s expectations, and upon deciding to keep the frog as his wife, she magically transforms into a beautiful princess.
After the play, the year’s awards were eagerly handed out to characters hailing from various folk tales. The favorite was the Russian folktale “Czar Ivanovich and Grey Wolf.” Grey Wolf accepted the award on behalf of this story.
This year’s Special Ogre Award was presented to Head of School Chris Nikoloff in recognition of his support of the K-Gr. 12 library program.
The Nichols Hall atrium was the setting for a confluence of art and science at Harker’s fourth annual science research symposium, New Frontiers, in mid-March. Over 300 attendees enjoyed breakfast, The Science of Art display in the upstairs gallery and music by the Harker String Quartet while viewing student presentations on site and streamed via the Internet.
All told, there were 37 MS and US presentations, 22 student papers, two alumni presenters from the class of 2004 and two keynote speakers.
With enthusiasm and confidence, students presented their work and answered questions from both guests and each other. Vikram Sundar, Gr. 7, sought out faculty mentor Rajasree Swaminathan, MS science teacher, and the Science Research Club to support his look at the use of capacitors to provide a steady current to charge solar lithium-ion batteries. “Research is a lot of fun,” Sundar said. “You can make it your own.”
“Kids argue logic and reasoning with one another, and challenge each other to do better and better,” said Huali G. Chai, mother of Siemens semifinalist Andrew Stanek, Gr. 12.
Papers were given on topics ranging from a survey of insect pollinator biodiversity on plants in Costa Rica to the activation of two proteins by airborne particulates relative to lung damage.
Emily Carr, Gr. 12, credited her faculty mentor, biology teacher Kate Schafer, with inspiring her to take Harker’s research class and develop her work on the effect of estrogens on sea urchins. “The class was terrific and Harker was very supportive,” Carr said.
Intel finalist Denzil Sikka, Gr. 12, credited Harker’s research class with the opportunity and support to develop a new algorithm for aligning large data sets. “Harker teachers are really open,” she said. “As long as you are willing to put in the work, they are willing to support you.”
Senior Dominique Dabija found a summer internship at Stanford University to develop her program that makes it easier to visualize the way a signal travels in a protein, and its effect on amino acids. She is also a member of Harker’s Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (WiSTEM) club, conducted the symposium’s CSI: Harker workshop, and was an Intel and Siemens semifinalist.
From afar, alumni Alfred Pokmeng See ’04, Johns Hopkins University, and Nikhil Deshmukh ’04, Princeton University, each led interactive videoconference sessions on their work with malignant brain tumors and neural activity in spatial navigation, respectively. This year’s event also featured two keynote speakers. Nimet Maherali, Ph.D. candidate at Har vard University Center for Regenerative Medicine and Cancer, spoke about “Cellular Alchemy and the Making of a Research Scientist.” Dr. Andrew Chan, senior vice president of immunology and antibody engineering at Genentech, addressed guests regarding “Science, Biotechnology and Medicine in the 21st Centur y.” Sponsors for this year’s event were Roche, Fortebio, Hunter Labs, Nanosyn, Pearl Therapeutics, Relypsa and Health Hero Network/Bosch.
The symposium was established by Anita Chetty, science department chair, as an opportunity for students to enter research competitions and share their work prior to graduation, and for alumni and other research leaders to link lab work with real world applications and careers. Alumnus Deshmukh noted, “I think it’s fair to say that the majority of my peers in graduate school did not even know what research was until junior or senior year of college; to have such an experience as a high school student can make a huge difference.”
Cal Tech student Aarathi Minisandram ’08 credits Chetty with helping her solidify her interest in pre-med. “The symposium is amazing,” she said. “The upper school resources are better than most colleges and the variety of science courses helped me broaden my horizons.” Minisandram ser ved as WiSTEM co-president when at Harker. “You see companies here and they are really interested in our work,” said Minisandram.
Chetty expressed her delight in the completion of Nichols Hall, which brings together all the sciences in one location and promotes the sharing of knowledge. “Thank you for making my dreams come true,” Chetty said as she expressed appreciation to the students, parents, mentors and faculty for their passion and patience, along with alumni who represent Harker and return to share. She also thanked the administration and lifetime trustee Diana Nichols for their support. Looking ahead, Chetty hopes to increase opportunities for students to find mentors, and expand the event to include students from schools across the country. She is also considering videoconferencing with sister schools in Australia and Switzerland. Next year’s symposium will be held on March 20, 2010.
February proved to be a strong month for Harker LS and MS mathematics, with students performing well in regional competitions, and yet another faculty member receiving honors.
MS math students posted a slew of high scores in the California Math League contest on February 17. The contest consists of 40 problems, with a top score of 40. The league classifies a score of 15 as “commendable” and a score of 30 as “exceptional.”
The Gr. 6 team scored 184 points, with top scorers Angela Gu and Andrew Zhang each earning 39 points. Other high scorers were Cindy Lu and Apoorva Rangan with 36; and Nikhil Kishore, Vivek Sriram and Helen Wu all with 34 points.
Gr. 7 math students shone with a total team score of 194. Top scorers were Vikram Sundar and Albert Zhao, both with a per fect score of 40; Travis Chen and Kristine Lin, both with 39; Albert Chu, Alex Pei, Rahul Sridhar and Nathan Wong, all with 38; Stephanie Chen, Tiffany Chu, Kevin Gao, Ben Huchley and Koshu Takatsuji, all with 37 points. Oishi Banerjee and Nihal Uppugunduri both scored 36 points. Ashwin Chalaka, Nikhil Dilip, Megan Prakash, Claudia Tischler and Andrew Wang each scored 35 points.
The Gr. 8’s team score was 187, with top scorer Ashvin Swaminathan pulling in a per fect score of 40. Tyler Yeats had 38, while Richard Fan had 37. Michael Cheng, Sierra Lincoln and Wilbur Yang each scored 36 points. Connie Cheng, Kyle Roter, Pranav Sharma and Michael Yu had 35 points.
Harker students also had a strong showing at the MathCounts Santa Clara Chapter Competition on Feb. 14. Team competitors were Travis Chen, Sierra Lincoln, Vikram Sundar and Nathan Wong. Competing individually were Rahul Desirazu, Simar Mangat, Pranav Sharma and Wilbur Yang.
Harker was one of 35 schools in the event, which featured a total of 235 highly talented students. As is usual in the Santa Clara chapter, competition was very stiff. Harker placed seventh overall in the event, despite being just 4.5 points behind the first-place school.
At the February tryouts for the Primary Mathematics World Contest, Harker had the highest number of top placers, with five students in Gr. 3-6 earning a top five rank in their respective grades. In the Gr. 6 category, students Cindy Liu and Menghua Rachel Wu took first and fourth place, respectively, while David Zhu took first in the Gr. 4 category, in which classmate Aneesh Samineni took third. Shaya Zarkesh earned first place in the Gr. 3 category.
Also in February, MS math teacher Scott Graham was awarded the Edyth May Sliffe award for 2008 for Distinguished Junior High School Mathematics Teaching.
Advanced technology has brought Harker students father down the global education road. Tobias Wade‘s Gr. 5 World Geography class enjoyed a video conference with teacher Joe Chung while Chung was on a teacher exchange in Shanghai, using Skype, a free video phone technology. Chung talked to the students about his experiences in Shanghai and answered student questions.
Lisa Diffenderfer, assistant director of instructional technology K-Gr. 5, provided tech support for the conference which required no special equipment other than a computer.
“What a cool piece of technology!” said Wade. “Seeing him while he answered the students’ questions really brought China into the classroom, giving the students a window into another culture, literally!”
Chung noted that one of the oft-asked questions was about weird foods, “so I thought it was fitting to challenge Tobias that if I tried one of the weird foods that I happened to have with me – duck neck, foot, heart, tongue – that he would have to try it next week as well.” Wade accepted the challenge and had his students vote on what food Chung should try – duck tongue was the preferred choice. Once the conference started, Chung took out the tongue and bit into it. “It was slimy and chewy, but not a whole lot of flavor. Luckily it was not gamey!” he said.
Alex Chien wanted to know what types of computers students in Shanghai use (PCs) and several questions revolved around the Great Wall of China. Cameron Palte asked, “How does the Great Wall of China look up close?” Given the grandeur of the structure, said Chung, “It is difficult to put into words the awe of it all, when you’re standing in the middle of the Great Wall. The amount of construction for many years to put this wall together is unimaginable. It is a sight to be seen!”
Grace Guan said the Skype conference “was cool because he answered all our questions. Also because we got to see him eat duck tongue.” Classmate Aashika Balaji agreed. “It was cool to see Mr. Chung eat the duck tongue. It looked gross but then he brought it back to see and smell it.” All in all, the conference was a sensory experience for the eyes, ears and, finally, the nose!
Members of the Gr. 5 class treated an audience of Gr. 4 and 5 students to some afternoon enter tainment with a lip syncing exhibition on Feb. 6. The event was emceed by students Nathaniel Stearns and Lisa Liu. Kicking things off were Kurt Schwartz and Gurutam Thockchom, who hammed it up to Pete Townsend’s “Let My Love Open the Door.” Elina Sendonaris and Allison Wang per formed “Total Eclipse of the Hear t” by Bonnie Tyler. In another highlight, students Suraj Jagadeesh and Akshay Battu replaced their air guitars with the guitar-shaped controllers from the popular “Guitar Hero” video game, and jammed to the Bon Jovi hit “You Give Love a Bad Name.” Not to be outdone, Kate Shanahan, Gr. 4-5 study skills and Gr. 5 English teacher, and Pat Walsh, Gr. 5 math teacher, performed a routine to the Sonny and Cher classic “I Got You Babe” to end the afternoon on a highly amusing note.
One Harker alumnus has leveraged his middle school science experiment to create a delicious wine. Will Jarvis MS’97, while boarding at Harker, received special dispensation to conduct a wine making experiment for his science class. This spring, Jarvis Winery (a family business), will release a wine based on the experiment. Jarvis, now attending Stanford business school, wasn’t able to sample the wine until he came of age nearly 10 years later.
After aging, the experimental wine was bottled and stored at the winery. When he and his family did open the bottles, they were excited enough about the flavor to call in their resident wine expert, who pronounced the wine exceptional. “I wasn’t really sure what to expect,” said Jarvis when he stopped by to help celebrate the opening of the Ringold Research Laboratory in Nichols Hall in February. “It was mostly conceived as a science experiment, so it wasn’t until later, when we actually tasted the wine, that we actually started to get excited about the quality.” That led to Jarvis’ second attempt to make wine. “Because it was inspired by the science project we decided to name it the Will Jarvis Science Project,” he said. Since college, Jarvis has been involved in wine making. “I have cycled through different positions at the winery,” he noted. “I did a summer working in the fields, a summer in shipping, I’ve done accounting and led tours for a summer; so I made my rounds through the winery, but this is my only personal attempt at wine making since Harker.”
Jarvis recalled the fuss around his original batch, which was in a seven- or eight-gallon cask, compared to the usual 60- gallon barrel. “There was a lot of excitement surrounding the experiment, given it was a fairly unusual project in that I was a 13- or 14-year-old middle school student making wine in my dorm room. Things were pretty compact so there wasn’t anywhere for me to put the barrel except the foot of my bed. That’s what I remember the most: having to live around the barrel, sort of negotiating my living space. Surprisingly enough, as far as I know, no one dipped into the keg – there weren’t any unauthorized wine tastings.”
Now, the new half-barrel (30- gallon) vintage, approved by the winery’s expert, is ready for sale. “We happened upon the quality of the smaller barrel serendipitously, through the science experiment,” said Jarvis, “but it makes a lot of sense because during wine making there is a well known trade-off during aging between absorbing a lot of the desirable oak-y flavors form the barrel, and losing some of the natural fruity flavor of the wine, which is also desirable. That (trade-off) just seems to be a function of time.
“The idea with the smaller-sized barrel, which has a higher surface to volume ratio, is that you absorb the oak at an accelerated rate so you don’t need to age the wine as long in order to absorb the same amount of oak flavor. The end result is that you are ageing the wine for a shorter amount of time in the barrel before you bottle it (and) when you bottle it you are essentially capturing (the flavor at that moment). People have used smaller barrels for experimental purposes before, but we are almost certainly the first winery to try that on a production scale.” Read more about Will Jarvis and his Science Experiment in the June Alumni News!
The annual Harker Blood Drive at the Saratoga campus on Feb. 25 drew a record number of donations, bringing in 82 people and collecting 58 units of blood. The accomplishment is credited with potentially saving up to 174 lives. “This was particularly exciting since this year, new rules and regulations have been imposed that restrict a larger number of people from donating,” said Ananya Anand, Gr. 12, the blood drive coordinator for the Harker Red Cross Club.
Students, faculty and staff showed up to give blood at the drive, which was organized by the Red Cross Club in conjunction with Blood Centers of the Pacific, a nonprofit organization that supplies blood to Northern California hospitals, doctors and patients.
Craigh Hough, a representative from Blood Centers of the Pacific present at the blood drive, said the blood would be used for transfusions, dialyses and other tasks that require donated blood to be on-hand. Specific parts of the blood will also be used, “like when Eskimos take down a polar bear,” Hough said, “they use the whole thing.” Only red blood cells are extracted during donations, as white blood cells are uniquely adapted to each person’s immune system.
Hough estimated that the Harker drive averages about 50 units each year, roughly twice the average amount of other community blood drives. “The blood drive has truly been a way to bring the Harker community together for a wonder ful cause,” Anand said. “Bay Area hospitals are currently facing major shortages in blood, so Harker’s contributions really make a difference. Within 72 hours, all the blood donated goes to a local hospital and every donated unit can save up to three lives.”