On March 5, Harker hosted the annual Teach Through Technology event, organized by Silicon Valley Computer Using Educators. Teachers from throughout Silicon Valley headed to the upper school campus event to learn new ways to employ technology in their classrooms.
Workshops topics included creating maker spaces, game-based learning, and student privacy and online security.
Tags: Featured StoryOn March 5, Harker hosted the annual Teach Through Technology event, organized by Silicon Valley Computer Using Educators. Teachers from throughout Silicon Valley headed to the upper school campus event to learn new ways to employ technology in their classrooms.
Workshops topics included creating maker spaces, game-based learning, and student privacy and online security.
Tags: Featured StorySophomore Divija Bhimaraju recently received a certificate of excellence in this year’s Prudential Spirit of Community Awards for her efforts to help blind people. She also received the President’s Volunteer Service Award for the amount of time she has dedicated to her volunteer work.
Bhimaraju felt prompted to help the blind when she attended a conference by the Sankara Eye Foundation in 2011. “These glimpses that changed my life came in the form of a few short, minute-long videos of pre-surgery and post-surgery blind children,” she said. “I think it was the gratitude and wonder on those small faces that inspired me to initiate change on that day, and it’s what motivates me now.”
She later founded Donum Visi to help grant disadvantaged people the gift of sight by spreading awareness and sponsoring surgeries. She also devoted time to local community service.
“With careful planning, advertising and management, I hosted free seminars for young children in which I created PowerPoints and pamphlets about the eye and different ailments,” she said. She also designed hands-on projects for the students, including color-coding, telescope building and optical illusions. In addition, Bhimaraju mentored a robotics team and taught basic science and English to children, for which she received donations.
“This fusion of my passions, teaching and service, served a double purpose: not only did I interactively teach and foster interest in academic subjects for young children, but I earned nearly twice the money I intended through voluntary donations by inspired students,” Bhimaraju said.
She has been able to sponsor 179 cataract surgeries. “I have changed 179 real, tangible lives, and I’ve seen videos of children who’ve undergone treatment through my efforts.”
Recently, Bhimaraju has been gathering eyeglasses and distributing them to those in need. Already she has donated more than 50 pairs to grant children in India the chance to see better. She also is seeking volunteer opportunities at schools for the blind and has contacted vision centers geared toward the homeless to distribute more glasses locally.
In December, Bhimaraju traveled to southern India and lived with the president of Sodhana, a leading community service organization. “I played with and taught children in Sodhana’s straw-roofed schools, and interacted with poor women who were surpassing traditional village hierarchies by taking part in self-help groups,” she recalled.
Overall, Bhimaraju sees her charitable efforts as a journey of self-discovery. “The one central question that has driven philosophers mad, that has sparked revolutions, that tears at the insides of every teenagers, is ‘Who am I?’ And I think that’s the biggest gift that I have received from volunteer work. Donum Visi has given me purpose: I have a vision for the world, a plan to make it happen, and a place for myself in it.”
Tags: Featured Story, OutreachArjun Subramaniam, grade 11, was selected to study at the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at SUNY Stony Brook as part of the Simons Summer Research Program. From June 27 through Aug. 9, Subramaniam will work full time with assistant professor Thomas MacCarthy, performing research in the department of applied mathematics and statistics.
Each year, Harker nominates three students for the program. They are selected based on their academic standing, the strength of their application and teacher recommendations. Each year many of the country’s best science students apply for this unique research program, but only about 12 percent are selected to participate. Congratulations to Arjun for this stellar opportunity!
Tags: Featured StoryIndia.com, March 29, 2016 — A review of the “Family Party” film, which features Harker alumni Vishal Vaidya ’15, Rahul Nalamasu ’13, Jai Ahuja ’15 and Cecilia Lang-Ree ’13
India West, March 25, 2016 — A news story about the film “Family Party,” which was recently acquired by Netflix.
The Davis Enterprise, March 18, 2016 — Junior Niki Iyer is mentioned in a story about Davis High’s performance at a recent track meet.
Contra Costa Times, March 16, 2016 — Harker is mentioned as one of the schools that produced a finalist in this year’s Intel Science Talent Search.
Examiner.com, March 8, 2016 — A story about a show in San Mateo in which Harker’s varsity dancers teamed up with the Ragazzi Boys Chorus.
Tags: Featured Story, In the NewsMore than 300 students from 14 schools participated in the 15th annual Diana Nichols Harker Math Invitational on March 6, with numerous Harker students earning high marks. In the grade 6 individual event, Rishab Parthasarathy took first place. For grade 7, Vivian Jin, Sidra Xu and Utkarsh Priyam took first, second and third, respectively.
In team competition, Harker students Vivian Jin, Luisa Pan, Srinath Somasundaram, Betsy Tian, George Wehner, Sidra Xu and Linus Zheng took second place in grade 7 level. For grade 8, Gabriel Chai, Allison Jia, Matthew Jin, Montek Kalsi, Shyl Lamba, Eileen Li and Sachin Shah took first place.
During the event, an estimation contest was held, in which contestants guessed the number of calories in a jar of candies. Harker student Luisa Pan, grade 7, won the contest by estimating a total of 15,780 calories. The actual number was 15,690.
Tags: Featured StoryUpdate, April 13, 2016:
The results from the California Math League contest held in February were recently released, and Harker’s high scores propelled them into several top spots at the both the regional and state levels. All three middle school teams (grades 6-8) placed first in Santa Clara County in their respective categories. State-wide, grade 6 placed fourth, grade 7 placed second and grade 8 took third. Congratulations!
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Harker middle school students received high scores in the California Math League contest held in mid-February. The contest consists of a 35-question test in which an individual score of 28 or higher is considered exceptional. Each school’s team score for each grade is a sum of that grade’s top five scores, with 175 being the highest possible score.
The grade 6 team score was 165, with Rishab Parthasarathy earning a perfect score of 35 and Alex Hu scoring 34. Other high scorers were Rohan Thakur with 33, William Zhao with 32 and Kevin Wang with 31.
For grade 7, Vivian Jin and Sidra Xu each contributed 33 points to team score of 160. Srinath Somasundaram scored 32 points, while George Wehner and Eric Zhu each scored 31.
Grade 8 also scored 160 points, with strong performances from Grace Huang (34 points), Vani Mohindra (33 points), Shyl Lamba (32 points) and Cynthia Chen (31 points). Other high scorers were Jeffrey Kwan, Eileen Li and Rakesh Nori, who each earned 30 points.
Tags: Featured StoryUpper school women’s vocal group Cantilena, directed by music teacher Susan Nace, garnered another unanimous superior rating at the California Music Educators Association’s Spring Festival on March 12. The group earned superior ratings for their sight-reading ability as well as their performance. Comments heard after the performance were extremely positive, Nace reported, adding that one person in attendance commented, “Wow! Mature, wonderful tone quality. Incredible group!” while another noted, “I didn’t want to comment, I just wanted to listen.”
The current members of Cantilena are Izzy Gross, Madhu Karra, Naomi Molin, Sahana Narayanan, Akshaya Premkumar, Rachel Renteria and Helen Woodruff, grade 12; Priyanka Chilukuri, Mia Giammona, Era Iyer, Chetana Kalidindi, Pooja Kini, Sara Pachauri, Medha Shah, Amrita Singh and Tiffany Zhu, grade 11; and Krishna Bheda and Millie Lin, grade 10.
Tags: Feature Story, Featured Story, toppaLast month, 26 Harker students qualified for a chance to compete in the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad and Junior Mathematical Olympiad. As a result, the students were invited to take the American Invitational Mathematics Examination (AIME), which was administered on March 3. Results are still to come. The AIME, which contains 15 questions and lasts three hours, is administered to students who score well on the American Mathematics Competition (AMC) exam. Their combined scores on the two tests determine their eligibility to compete in the Olympiads.
Congratulations to the following students for making it this far:
Lawrence Li, Evan Lohn, Jonathan Ma, Anika Mohindra, Allison Wang and Richard Yi, all grade 12; Kai Ang, Steven Cao, Misha Ivkov, Justin Jia, Winnie Li, Manan Shah, Peter Wu and David Zhu, all grade 11; Swapnil Garg, Linus Li, Jimmy Lin, Joanna Lin, Rajiv Movva and Neelesh Ramachandran, all grade 10; Rose Guan, Jason Huang, Satvik Narasimhan, Katherine Tian, Cindy Wang and Michael Wang, all grade 9.
Tags: Featured StoryResults from the first round of the North American Computational Linguistics Olympiad (NACLO) recently arrived, and the following 10 students qualified to advance to the invitational round: Lawrence Li, grade 12; Misha Ivkov, Andrew Rule, Kai-Siang Ang and David Zhu, all grade 11; Swapnil Garg, Rajiv Movva, Michael Kwan and Joanna Lin, all grade 10; and Rose Guan, grade 9.
The students will participate in the next stage of the competition on March 10.
Since its founding in 2006, NACLO has tested high school students on a variety of linguistics puzzles. The top-scoring students then represent the United States at the International Linguistics Olympiad, to be held this summer in Mysore, India.
Tags: Feature Story Photo, Featured Story, topacademics