Harker preschoolers enjoyed a delightful pre-Halloween activity, reading the book “Pumpkin Jack” and carving their own pumpkins!
“In this story, a boy named Tim carves a pumpkin that he loves very much and names Jack,” explained Amanda Crook, preschool STEM specialist. “Jack starts getting old and Tim takes Jack to their garden where you watch page by page the transformations Jack makes during the decomposing process.
“In the middle of the book, nothing remains but a stem, old skin and some seeds. Tim says goodbye as he covers the seeds with dirt. Springtime arrives and Tim finds a sprout where Jack was. Tim nurtures the sprout as we follow the life cycle and growth of the pumpkin plant. By the end of the story Tim has many pumpkins that he shares with friends but keeps one for himself. Tim carves another face on his pumpkin and welcomes Jack back,” Crook said.
As the year progresses, each cottage will watch their pumpkin decompose and, hopefully, sprout again. The children will learn new vocabulary as they document the process through photos and observational drawings. “The students are excited to see this process through, and it will give them the opportunity to see that science does not always have instant results and often takes time and patience,” said Crook. For now, each cottage’s pumpkin has been placed outside the front of the STEM lab in the butterfly garden, and the cycle continues!
Last week, grade 9 students went to Rancho Cañada del Oro Open Space Preserve in Morgan Hill for Freshman Service Day, working to clear and widen the preserve’s trails. The annual effort, which takes place on days when sophomores and juniors take the PSAT, helps students gain a greater appreciation for the various nature preserves in the Bay Area.
Volunteers at the preserve also taught students about various topics, including tracking wildlife, native plants and bird watching, and Harker teachers in attendance led outdoor classes on observing and appreciating nature, journaling and the environment.
Harker held its annual TEDx conference this past weekend, bringing some great speakers and booths to the campus.
Speakers included Priti Hegde, Ph.D., director and global franchise lead for cancer immunotherapy biomarkers at Genentech, whose talk was on “Our Immune System and Our Defense Against Cancer.” Dale Hitt, a Silicon Valley innovator who helped bring to market the Motorola Android phone and the first TiVo DVR, also spoke. His talk was titled “AI is Watching You … and it is a Good Thing,” a very hot topic at the moment.
Cynthia Zhai, voice coach, speaker and author, talked about “The Transformative Power of Your Voice.” Zhai has helped business professionals from around the world to speak with impact and conviction. Finally, Simar Bajaj, grade 12, spoke on “Breaking the Locks: Why I cut My Hair After 17 Years.” Bajaj is studying history and medicine and has worked as a paid fellow in Stanford’s cardiothoracic surgery department.
One of the highlights of the day was a lunch with 20 mentors from a wide variety of businesses. They included Tony Wong, who has worked for Salesforce, Oracle and Siebel Systems; Ekta Sahasi, vice president of the North American Business Innovation Center and managing director of research for Konica Minolta; and Jeff Rothschild, an entrepreneur and engineer specializing in system architecture, storage software and infrastructure software.
Booth displays included Pomodoro Architects, which uses 3D modeling software and virtual reality to create designs; EyeCloud.ai, which specializes in AI smart vision embedded devices; and CloudMosa, which aims to empower the world’s phones through cloud computing to make them universally powerful and useful.
On Oct. 12, the student-founded nonprofit KidzRule held the second-annual Santa Clara Children’s Business Fair. The event, held in Santa Clara’s Live Oak Park, was co-founded last year by Harker sixth grader Mikhil Kiran. The organizers worked closely with the city of Santa Clara to put on the fair, and Kiran had several key responsibilities, including raising funds, getting plans approved by the city council and marketing the event.
Several businesses started by Harker students were present at the fair, including third grader Ayza Tahirzad and fifth grader Bazigh Tahirzad’s Pet Rocks; seventh grader Avayna Glass’ Kissify Soaps; fifth graders Risa Chokhawala and Trisha Shivakumar’s Books and Bottlecaps; and C3 Custom Card Cases, founded by sixth graders Ruhan Arora and Alejandro Cheline, and fifth grader Ian Cheline. In total, 99 young entrepreneurs were showcased at the fair.
Attendees spent their time visiting booths and listening to the businesses pitch their products. Some of the businesses sold all of their available inventory. A custom greeting card business received a large corporate order and another was given an opportunity to market therapeutic pillows through a local physical therapy business.
Several prizes were awarded to the business at the fair, and C3 Custom Card Cases took first place in Best Salesmanship in the ages 10-12 category. Businesses were judged by a panel that included Harker DECA members Alivia Li, grade 10; Lisa Barooah, Bryan Zhang, Elaine Zhai, all grade 11; and seniors Mahi Kolla and Christine Tang, led by business and entrepreneurship teacher Juston Glass.
Santa Clara city councilmember Kathy Watanabe was a guest speaker at the event, and expressed her appreciation for the organizers’ hard work and the important learning opportunities the fair offered. “I was so impressed by the product creativity, marketing but most importantly how some entrepreneurs used this as a way to give back to communities in need,” she said.
As a top 10 finalist in this year’s 3M Young Scientist Challenge, eighth grader Reshma Kosaraju is eligible to win the Improving Lives Award, which is given to the project that the public believes to be the most beneficial. Voting is now open, and visitors can vote for their favorite project once a day until Oct. 25 at 5 p.m. eastern time.
June 26, 2019:
Yesterday, rising eighth grader Reshma Kosaraju was named one of the top 10 national finalists in the 2019 3M Young Scientist Challenge. Her project investigated how machine learning and neural networks could be used to predict and prevent forest fires. Each student participating in the competition submitted a video about a solution they devised for a common problem. As a finalist, Kosaraju has earned the opportunity to enter a special mentorship program, in which she will work with a 3M scientist to create a prototype of her project. She also is eligible to participate in the final competition, which will take place in late October at the 3M Innovation Center in St. Paul, Minn. The grand prize winner will receive $25,000.
The Harker community showed up in the hundreds for Saturday night’s Homecoming to enjoy company with friends and family, sample a variety of foods and cheer on the Eagles, who took on the Saint Vincent de Paul Mustangs.
Guests began showing up roughly an hour before game time for the tailgate festivities, perusing tables of pizza, soft drinks, hot dogs and other goodies set up by Harker staff, students and families, as well as food trucks which set up shop on the upper school parking lot. Students raised funds for class activities by selling pizza and candy to attendees, often walking the area with boxes in hand.
From their station on the bleachers, the Harker Pep Band kept things lively throughout the evening as they entertained onlookers and energized the players. The pre-game entertainment also included two beloved Harker Homecoming traditions, a performance by the Junior Cheerleaders and the Eaglets flyby, which were warmly received as always by the audience gathered in the stands.
Prior to kickoff, the third place tug-of-war match between the sophomores and the freshmen ended with the Class of 2022 emerging the victors. The finals of the tug-of-war took place at halftime, with the juniors taking first place and celebrating ecstatically on Davis Field.
An especially eventful halftime also saw performances by the Harker upper school cheer squad and the Harker Dance Company, as well as a special appearance by Harker Athletic Hall of Fame inductees Kristina Bither Gurney ’09, Adhir Ravipati ’05 and former athletic department staffer Chris Collins, who had been inducted before the start of the game. Closing out halftime was the showing of this year’s Homecoming Court and the crowning of seniors Grant Miner and Kathy Fang as this year’s Homecoming Royalty to much fanfare.
The final score for the evening was 34-6 in favor of St. Vincent de Paul, who were thanked by Head of School Brian Yager for being gracious opponents and guests.
Harker’s year-old Athletic Hall of Fame doubled in size tonight, when four new inductees were presented with their awards and formally entered as hall of famers.
Adhir Ravipati ’05 was inducted for his multisport prowess at Harker and his stellar coaching record as the Menlo High School football coach. Kristina Bither Gurney ’09 was a member of the state finalist volleyball team in 2007 and played a wicked game of soccer, as well. Maverick McNealy ’13 has been a household name – at least in golfing households – for years as he contributed heavily to the many fine finishes of Harker golf teams, and now he has gone pro. Former athletic department staffer Chris Collins was a critical part of the department team as Harker ramped up its athletic offerings, and a friend to all students needing help.
Following deeply heartfelt speeches by athletic directors Dan Molin (upper school), and Theresa “Smitty” Smith (lower and middle school), each inductee was presented with a beautiful crystal award (Butch Keller, upper school head, accepted for McNealy as he is currently on the PGA tour). The ceremony was very well attended by friends and family of the other inductees, including a large contingent celebrating with Collins.
There was a reception prior to the induction in the athletic center’s multipurpose room for the inductees and family, where past acquaintances were renewed with fellow alumni, coaches, teachers and administrators.
Read a bit about them on our webpage, which has links to summaries of their athletic careers. Huge congrats to these four! https://www.harker.org/halloffame
Today’s Family & Alumni Picnic brought hundreds of members of the Harker community to the lower school campus to enjoy games, food, student performances and more. Ever-popular carnival games attracted visitors to the campus blacktop to try their hands at winning various prizes. Despite the unseasonable warmth, attendees also ventured out of the shade to drive around in bumper cars, climb the rock wall and attempt to drop Harker teachers into a dunk tank. One of the more popular attractions was a mechanical unicorn that students attempted to ride without being thrown off.
At the Nichols Hall amphitheater, various student performing arts groups entertained the lunchtime audience with a show based on the popular board game Candy Land, featuring none other than Head of School Brian Yager as the Candy King. The food court was another favorite destination of this year’s picnicgoers, who dined on pizza, Indian food and more while also partaking of the confections offered at the bake sale and senior class’ candy sale. Meanwhile, the pony rides were a hit with the youngest attendees, and assortment of adorable animals at the petting zoo drew a steady crowd.
Many thanks to all who gathered with their fellow community members at this year’s picnic. See you next year!
Annie Ma, grade 12, has had a number of poems published in The RavensPerch, an independent literary magazine. Just search for Annie Ma to read the others!
In early September, the Harker Programming Club hosted the second Girls Programming League Challenge, in which 100 girls from around the Bay Area took part in a coding contest and attended talks by a wide variety of guest speakers. The event was founded as a way to encourage the pursuit of computer science among middle and high school girls. Competitions were held for both novice and advanced programmers, and a total of 16 awards were distributed among the contestants. Teams of three students each were tasked with solving a series of programming problems within a two-hour time limit.
Talks were given by Chelsea Finn, an assistant professor of computer science at Stanford and research scientist at Google Brain, and Sharon Zhou, a Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University studying artificial intelligence applications for health care and climate change. A panel discussion also was held with Paige Bailey, TensorFlow product manager at Google; Qualcomm senior product marketing manager Sreeja Nair; Sue Xu, managing partner at Amino Capital; and Harker’s own upper school biology teacher Kate Schafer.