Preschoolers had a great Earth Day last week! Parent volunteers were key to making the day special: one parent volunteer talked about climate change and read “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss to the class. Other parent volunteers stood by to demonstrate various ecological investigations for our students to explore: solar, wind and water energy stations, a water filtration station and germination station. It was a great week for students, parents and teachers!
Preschoolers had a great Earth Day last week! Parent volunteers were key to making the day special: one parent volunteer talked about climate change and read “The Lorax” by Dr. Seuss to the class. Other parent volunteers stood by to demonstrate various ecological investigations for our students to explore: solar, wind and water energy stations, a water filtration station and germination station. It was a great week for students, parents and teachers!
Harker students performed very well at the Tournament of Champions last weekend. This prestigious speech and debate tournament, hosted by the University of Kentucky, is open to students who have performed well at varsity invitationals, and Harker qualified a number of students.
Junior Avi Gulati won first place in original oratory, an outstanding achievement! Senior Haris Hosseini was third in oratory, and Nikki Solanki, grade 11, was third in program oral interpretation. Senior Alycia Cary was in the semifinals of oratory. Additionally, Nakul Bajaj and David Feng, both grade 11, and Andrew Sun, grade 10, all made it to the semifinals of congressional debate.
Finally, Akshay Manglik, grade 10, and Sachin Shah, grade 11, qualified to compete in Lincoln-Douglas debate. Both junior Prerana Acharyya and Solanki (who qualified in two events!) qualified to compete in dramatic interpretation. It was thrilling for the whole team to see so many Harker Eagles do so well at the tournament!
Freshmen David Dai and Rishab Parthasarathy were recently selected to be two of 20 high school students on the 2019 U.S. Physics Team. Each year, the American Association of Physics Teachers selects team members from the top scorers on the USA Physics Exam, who are then invited to a boot camp at the University of Maryland, College Park. Five of these students will then be chosen for the traveling team for the International Physics Olympiad in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Five teams of Harker fourth and fifth graders were winners at The Tech Challenge, held March 30-31 at The Tech Museum of Innovation in downtown San Jose. The theme of the competition, “No Roads, No Problem,” challenged students to create a hovercraft that could traverse various terrains.
Get Teched – made up of fourth graders Risa Chokhawala, Rohan Goyal, Brandon Labio and Trisha Shivakumar – was one of three teams in the Grades 4-5 category to receive the Outstanding Overall award for best overall performance. Also winning Outstanding Overall was Donut Dogs, composed of fifth graders Janam Chahal, Sofia Shah, Brenna Ren and Ananya Pradhan, which also earned second place in the video contest.
Fourth graders Kamala Smith, Ameera Ramzan, Adrian Roufas and Nicholas Knauer – known collectively as Yes We KAAN – received the Outstanding Engineering Journal award, while Orange Duo, consisting of fourth graders Neel Kumar and Cole Uhlig, were presented with the Judges’ Inspiration Award. Best Teamwork went to the Hover Eagles, comprising fourth graders Orion Ghai, Samaara Patil, Nikhil Bawa and Aanya Mukherjee.
Five teams of Harker fourth and fifth graders were winners at The Tech Challenge, held March 30-31 at The Tech Museum of Innovation in downtown San Jose. The theme of the competition, “No Roads, No Problem,” challenged students to create a hovercraft that could traverse various terrains.
Get Teched – made up of fourth graders Risa Chokhawala, Rohan Goyal, Brandon Labio and Trisha Shivakumar – was one of three teams in the Grades 4-5 category to receive the Outstanding Overall award for best overall performance. Also winning Outstanding Overall was Donut Dogs, composed of fifth graders Janam Chahal, Sofia Shah, Brenna Ren and Ananya Pradhan, which also earned second place in the video contest.
Fourth graders Kamala Smith, Ameera Ramzan, Adrian Roufas and Nicholas Knauer – known collectively as Yes We KAAN – received the Outstanding Engineering Journal award, while Orange Duo, consisting of fourth graders Neel Kumar and Cole Uhlig, were presented with the Judges’ Inspiration Award. Best Teamwork went to the Hover Eagles, comprising fourth graders Orion Ghai, Samaara Patil, Nikhil Bawa and Aanya Mukherjee.
Five teams of Harker fourth and fifth graders were winners at The Tech Challenge, held March 30-31 at The Tech Museum of Innovation in downtown San Jose. The theme of the competition, “No Roads, No Problem,” challenged students to create a hovercraft that could traverse various terrains.
Get Teched – made up of fourth graders Risa Chokhawala, Rohan Goyal, Brandon Labio and Trisha Shivakumar – was one of three teams in the Grades 4-5 category to receive the Outstanding Overall award for best overall performance. Also winning Outstanding Overall was Donut Dogs, composed of fifth graders Janam Chahal, Sofia Shah, Brenna Ren and Ananya Pradhan, which also earned second place in the video contest.
Fourth graders Kamala Smith, Ameera Ramzan, Adrian Roufas and Nicholas Knauer – known collectively as Yes We KAAN – received the Outstanding Engineering Journal award, while Orange Duo, consisting of fourth graders Neel Kumar and Cole Uhlig, were presented with the Judges’ Inspiration Award. Best Teamwork went to the Hover Eagles, comprising fourth graders Orion Ghai, Samaara Patil, Nikhil Bawa and Aanya Mukherjee.
Harker preschoolers had a more-than-just-Earth Day moment as they enjoyed the world of beanstalks today. STEM specialist Robyn Stone expounded on the beanstalk they have grown in the preschool farm, while Sara Mccloskey, preschool librarian, created a beanstalk to go with her storytelling. The students made giants and Jacks and other items to hang on the beanstalk. Too much fun!
Nine Harker students were presented with National Speech & Debate Association Academic All American awards this month. Nikhil Dharmaraj, grade 12; Avi Gulati, grade 11 Anusha Kuppahally, grade 12; Annie Ma, grade 11; Sachin Shah, grade 11; Kelly Shen, grade 12; Nikki Solanki, grade 11; Clarissa Wang, grade 12; and Cindy Wang, grade 12 were honored for their “academic rigor, competitive speech and debate success and personal excellence.”
Fewer than 1,000 students are awarded out of more than 141,000 student members of the National Speech& Debate Association, which puts these ten students in the top one percent of all student members, nationwide.
To earn the award, students must have completed at least five semesters of high school, earned the degree of Superior Distinction in the organization’s Honor Society, achieved a certain level of GPA, and demonstrated outstanding character and leadership. Watch for the full story of this year’s speech and debate team in the summer issue of Harker Magazine. It’s been a great ride!
Updated
April 30, 2019
Harker’s National Economics Challenge team, The Harker 10, is once again off to New York City after taking first in the NorCal state finals in early April. Attending team members are Grace Huang, Sahil Jain, Jeffrey Liu and Rakesh Nori, all grade 11. Good luck, Harker 10!
April 16, 20109
Harker emerged first in the NorCal state finals of the National Economics Challenge, held April 3 at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Sixty students entered in the challenge and of those, 11 had perfect scores on the online test. Two teams, The Harker 10 and Clowns, had the maximum score of 900 and both represented Harker in the NorCal finals. The Harker 10 finished first and the Clowns came in a seriously respectable third. The Harker 10 team now moves on to the national semifinals, where the top eight state winners will earn a trip to New York City for a chance to compete on live TV for the national championship!
The Harker 10 are Jeffrey Liu, Sahil Jain, Grace Huang, all grade 11, and Russell Yang, grade 10. Clowns were Arnav Joshi, Evan Cheng, Nikhil Sharma and Rohan Cherukuri, all grade 11. Go Eaglenomics!