More than a dozen Harker students are on a summer research trip in Tanzania, and upper school biology teacher Mike Pistacchi sent some updates on this amazing trip!
June 7:
We woke up this morning to the sight of zebras and elands drinking from a pond 100 feet from our rooms. Then we headed out to Mt. Kilimanjaro for a beautiful hike through a pristine cloud forest (we only stopped 17,000 vertical feet short of the summit!). We then drove down to the savannah where, on the way to our lodge in Tarangire National Park, we sighted zebras, elephants, warthogs, impalas, vervet monkeys and a brown snake eagle! Now we are sitting on the lodge patio with a 180-degree view out over the park as we wait for dinner to be served. Tough life on safari …
June 8:
Today we had an amazing day, spending the entire time exploring Tarangire National Park by Jeep. We saw an absolutely stunning number of animals today, including impalas, zebras, elephants, the largest buffalo herd imaginable (think 500-plus giant animals all staring at your car) and even found ourselves in the midst of a group of female and baby elephants that wandered within 20 feet of our Jeeps while we snapped pictures. We also conducted our first transect study, as the students collected data including animal counts, group sizes, GPS locations and distributions. We will be comparing the data collected today with the data from three other parks as we assess biodiversity in various ecosystems. Other activities today included discussions of legal and social issues in the country, the ecological importance of permanent water sources in the savannah and the increasing fragmentation of giraffe populations in Africa. So yes, we are tired, but happy!
Tomorrow morning we leave to study anthropology in the Olduvai Gorge World Heritage Site (where our earliest hominid ancestors lived) and then head to a three-night stay in the Serengeti National Park.
June 12:
We’re now lounging in the extremely plush Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge after three amazing days and nights “glamping” in a tent camp in the Serengeti wilderness. We had several days of game driving in the Serengeti, in which we saw all of the big five (leopards, buffalo, lions, elephants and rhinos) in one day; most of the group even got to see a cheetah stalk, chase and kill a gazelle (this is a very rare experience). We also were incredibly lucky to see three of the world’s last remaining wild black rhinoceroses in their natural habitat. At night we could hear lions roaring and hyenas laughing outside of our tents. Quite the full-immersion safari experience!
Tonight we are at the aforementioned Sopa Lodge, where our rooms look out over a 4,000-foot drop to the world’s largest volcanic crater (technically a caldera). We can see about 30 miles out over the crater which is full of wildebeests and other wildlife. Needless to say, it is breathtaking.
Tomorrow morning we get a bit of a sleep-in and then we make the transition from “safari” to “cultural and social immersion” as we spend the next three days visiting several tribes and immersing ourselves in their lifestyles. This will include fishing with the Datoga (tomorrow) and a pre-dawn hunting excursion with the Hadzabe, Africa’s last full-time hunting and gathering tribe (note: we will not be doing the hunting!) We will also be visiting and volunteering with the various charity groups that we have been raising money for and running an eye clinic for the Maasai tribe.
June 14:
Today we had the true once-in-a-lifetime experience of meeting and spending the morning with a group of Hadzabe, Africa’s last hunting-gathering tribe. This was not a tourist experience; our guides arranged for us to meet this group based on their long relationship with the tribe. When we found their camp out in the Lake Eyasi wilderness we sat around the campfire with them and both sides asked questions of the other out of mutual curiosity. The Hadzabe were impressed by our students’ politeness and puzzled by our assertions that in our society women can be equal to men even though women are not strong enough to fight off dangerous animals. We asked one Hadzabe woman if she had ever been to the town and she had no idea what a town was. Clearly a unique cultural experience!
On our part, we got to talk to the women about what their lives are like and learn about medicine and how to shoot arrows with the men. After some archery practice we headed out with the skin-clad hunters on a two hour hunt, literally running through the bush with the hunters and their dogs fanning out in front seeking game. The hunters were armed only with bows and a variety of arrows, some poisoned with a local tree sap. They did not manage to find any antelope or baboons (apparently the tastiest animal) but they made some amazing shots and brought down several birds, which they roasted on their fires back at the huts.
After our Hadzabe visit we got on the road and after a stop to do some souvenir shopping (and lots of haggling) we made it to Lake Manyara.
Tonight everyone is totally exhausted, no doubt thanks to the overwhelming cultural immersion of the morning!
More than a dozen Harker students are on a summer research trip in Tanzania, and upper school biology teacher Mike Pistacchi sent some updates on this amazing trip!
June 7:
We woke up this morning to the sight of zebras and elands drinking from a pond 100 feet from our rooms. Then we headed out to Mt. Kilimanjaro for a beautiful hike through a pristine cloud forest (we only stopped 17,000 vertical feet short of the summit!). We then drove down to the savannah where, on the way to our lodge in Tarangire National Park, we sighted zebras, elephants, warthogs, impalas, vervet monkeys and a brown snake eagle! Now we are sitting on the lodge patio with a 180-degree view out over the park as we wait for dinner to be served. Tough life on safari …
June 8:
Today we had an amazing day, spending the entire time exploring Tarangire National Park by Jeep. We saw an absolutely stunning number of animals today, including impalas, zebras, elephants, the largest buffalo herd imaginable (think 500-plus giant animals all staring at your car) and even found ourselves in the midst of a group of female and baby elephants that wandered within 20 feet of our Jeeps while we snapped pictures. We also conducted our first transect study, as the students collected data including animal counts, group sizes, GPS locations and distributions. We will be comparing the data collected today with the data from three other parks as we assess biodiversity in various ecosystems. Other activities today included discussions of legal and social issues in the country, the ecological importance of permanent water sources in the savannah and the increasing fragmentation of giraffe populations in Africa. So yes, we are tired, but happy!
Tomorrow morning we leave to study anthropology in the Olduvai Gorge World Heritage Site (where our earliest hominid ancestors lived) and then head to a three-night stay in the Serengeti National Park.
June 12:
We’re now lounging in the extremely plush Ngorongoro Sopa Lodge after three amazing days and nights “glamping” in a tent camp in the Serengeti wilderness. We had several days of game driving in the Serengeti, in which we saw all of the big five (leopards, buffalo, lions, elephants and rhinos) in one day; most of the group even got to see a cheetah stalk, chase and kill a gazelle (this is a very rare experience). We also were incredibly lucky to see three of the world’s last remaining wild black rhinoceroses in their natural habitat. At night we could hear lions roaring and hyenas laughing outside of our tents. Quite the full-immersion safari experience!
Tonight we are at the aforementioned Sopa Lodge, where our rooms look out over a 4,000-foot drop to the world’s largest volcanic crater (technically a caldera). We can see about 30 miles out over the crater which is full of wildebeests and other wildlife. Needless to say, it is breathtaking.
Tomorrow morning we get a bit of a sleep-in and then we make the transition from “safari” to “cultural and social immersion” as we spend the next three days visiting several tribes and immersing ourselves in their lifestyles. This will include fishing with the Datoga (tomorrow) and a pre-dawn hunting excursion with the Hadzabe, Africa’s last full-time hunting and gathering tribe (note: we will not be doing the hunting!) We will also be visiting and volunteering with the various charity groups that we have been raising money for and running an eye clinic for the Maasai tribe.
June 14:
Today we had the true once-in-a-lifetime experience of meeting and spending the morning with a group of Hadzabe, Africa’s last hunting-gathering tribe. This was not a tourist experience; our guides arranged for us to meet this group based on their long relationship with the tribe. When we found their camp out in the Lake Eyasi wilderness we sat around the campfire with them and both sides asked questions of the other out of mutual curiosity. The Hadzabe were impressed by our students’ politeness and puzzled by our assertions that in our society women can be equal to men even though women are not strong enough to fight off dangerous animals. We asked one Hadzabe woman if she had ever been to the town and she had no idea what a town was. Clearly a unique cultural experience!
On our part, we got to talk to the women about what their lives are like and learn about medicine and how to shoot arrows with the men. After some archery practice we headed out with the skin-clad hunters on a two hour hunt, literally running through the bush with the hunters and their dogs fanning out in front seeking game. The hunters were armed only with bows and a variety of arrows, some poisoned with a local tree sap. They did not manage to find any antelope or baboons (apparently the tastiest animal) but they made some amazing shots and brought down several birds, which they roasted on their fires back at the huts.
After our Hadzabe visit we got on the road and after a stop to do some souvenir shopping (and lots of haggling) we made it to Lake Manyara.
Tonight everyone is totally exhausted, no doubt thanks to the overwhelming cultural immersion of the morning!
Eight more students walk away from Harker this year, each having contributed a unique historical research paper to the growing archive housed in the John Near Research Center.
Harker’s two grant programs, The John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment Fund, founded in 2009, and the Mitra Family Endowment for the Humanities, founded in 2012, funded the students’ yearlong efforts. The range of papers for 2013-14 is remarkable. From an analysis of the viability of bitcoins to counter-intelligence efforts against the Black Panthers to the influence of the Roman Republic on the Constitution, each topic was plumbed by a student intrigued by its roots. At the annual reception in late April for Near and Mitra scholars, students and mentors spoke about the long road to complete a research paper and what they discovered about themselves and their topics, along the way.
Four of the papers address societal problems in the U.S. Connie Li, one of the five Near grant recipients, followed her muse to write “Islamic Student Experience in the Classroom after 9/11: A Holistic Analysis of Sociopolitical Influence on the Muslim Student Pysche,” finding that the most commonly used textbooks in U.S. schools use one-sided descriptions of Muslims; while Muslims find themselves discriminated against, there are Muslim voices that rise to protest being victimized and other voices that protest the demonization of Muslims.
The subject matter is of interest to every thinking American as it is one of the great polarizing topics of our time. Her three-plus page bibliography is impressive. “I’ve been devoted to understanding American identities under siege because religion is something so precious to identity, but so difficult to share peacefully, sometimes, that I have learned to measure the achievement of the American ideal of liberty against the progress and protection of religious freedom,” said Li. “My work is about reaching beyond the easy judgments, the sweeping generalizations and the self-defense of hate that is so easy to wrap around ourselves in times of both fear and comfort.”
In researching her topic, Divya Kaladindi selected a topic of great interest, as it is germane to our NSA-surveilled world. Kaladindi scrutinized the FBI’s famed 1960s Counter Intelligence Program (CoIntelPro), a counter-terrorism campaign bent on destroying groups identified as subversive in her paper, titled “Watching and Wiretapping: An Analysis of the Implications of the FBI’s Illegal Counter-Intelligence Programs against the Black Panther Party during the 1960s.” She focused on their penetration and destruction of the Black Panther movement, which included trashing their Chicago headquarters after contriving an excuse to search the premises.
Luckily, the program was exposed and, though the Black Panther Party was destroyed, the FBI came under such scrutiny it was forced to disband CoIntelPro, and regulations were put in place to prevent a similar effort from reoccurring. Kaladindi has successfully encapsulated a piece of political history in such a way that both ends of her chain, the pernicious facets of the FBI and the radicalism of the Black Panthers, stimulate tangential consideration. “I chose this topic mainly because of a strange fascination with the FBI,” she said.
Through her research, she found that, “The FBI was, in fact, just as interesting and scandalous as it appeared to be in popular culture but inherently much more complex. Guidelines, propriety and issues of legality fell to the sidelines as spying, forgery, harassment and psychological warfare reigned in desperate attempts to quash militant groups like the Panthers. This process was extremely demanding, but through it I learned the importance of time management and critical thinking. I’m probably on the FBI’s radar because I’ve visited their site so many times,” she noted.
One of the most original papers yet submitted was that by Monica Thurkal, who examined how curly hair has influenced the treatment of individuals in life and literature in her paper, “Wanton Ringlets: A Tangible Medium for Identity and Power.” Thurkal noted that she has straightened her hair for years, and that effort led her to question the value of conforming in order to fit in professionally, and how hair-straightening can affect a woman’s self-confidence. She addresses the cultural tendency of some ethnicities to straighten hair in order to become more mainstream, and how negative attitudes in literature towards kinky hair promote stereotypes and pigeonhole its wearers.
Wanton Ringlets is a phrase describing Eve from Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” and Thurkal notes it pins Eve with connotation of immorality. In her paper, Thurkal notes a number of legal precedents that appear to punish those with non-straight hair. Her paper is an interesting perspective on an unusual topic. “Through my project, I learned that hair is really a symbol of social oppression,” said Thurkal. “Why do popular teen movies or popular culture associate straight hair with womanhood, and why is straight hair an expectation for professional appearance within the business world? By changing their hair, women experience a troubling rejection of themselves. What was really cool was that I was able to create my own intellectual path within the subject of sociology,” she said.
This subject, though not at the forefront of social recognition, gives pause to those who have never considered the ramifications of hair. Thurkal has taken an uncomfortable reality and written about it thoughtfully and with insight that makes it relevant, no matter who you are.
Finally in the social consciousness collection, Zina Jawadi examines the disability rights movement in her paper, “The Hidden History of the Disability Rights Movement: Improving Access to Education in the Shadow of the Feminist and Civil Rights Movements of the 1960s and 1970s.” Jawadi, a tireless advocate for disability rights, noted that the movement is under-researched, though, promisingly, there has been a thousandfold increase in journal titles on the subject from 1979 to 2011. She notes that 50 years ago, as marginalized populations stood up to be recognized, the atmosphere created by the larger student movements, especially on college campuses, allowed disability rights efforts to be heard both due to entrenched powers being forced to examine their policies on civil and women’s rights and thus hearing about disabled persons’ needs, and because disabled rights workers were able to learn from observing successes of those managing other rights movements.
This is a paper filled with the passion of its writer and it is a must-read for anyone interested in human rights. “Initially, I expected my research to confirm my hypothesis that these social advocates supported each other, thereby strengthening all of the movements,” Jawadi said. “How wrong I was. My research gave me a greater understanding of what was going on behind the scenes,” and Jawadi noted there was often competition for media attention.
Jawadi, who has a significant hearing loss, said that ever since eighth grade, she has worked towards her lifetime goal to change the world of hearing, scientifically and socially.
Her work on the Near paper “helped me crystallize my calling,” she said. “A children’s advocate started a fund in 1973 hoping to provide children with disabilities better access to education. She was disgusted to discover from the U.S. Census Bureau that 750,000 children with disabilities, aged seven to thirteen, were not attending school. These children were hindered from receiving proper education because of their disabilities.”
“My research gave me a deeper perspective on the struggle people with disabilities face and, based on my research, I have developed a three-step plan for my disability rights work. I hope to witness a second disabilities rights movement.”
In a long step from disability rights, the paper “Bit by Bit: An Economic Analysis of Bitcoin’s Viability as a Currency,” by Anisha Padwekar, retails the growth of bitcoins, their advantages and disadvantages. Her paper is a well-researched, well-ordered contemporary analysis including relevant history, and is a great primer for anyone interested in the phenom of bitcoins.
While most readers are familiar with the term, and understand the protocurrency is digital, few grasp the technology behind it and the value – or the dangers – of the digital currency plan. Padwekar takes what could be a very dry subject and, using historical comparisons, news items on bitcoin and financial market analysis, defines for readers why bitcoins are attractive and yet not quite ready for prime time; she makes the topic not only readable, but interesting. “I wanted to choose a topic that would be a relevant economic question today,” said Padwekar. “Perhaps the most interesting part of my research were the tangents I went on. It was interesting to read about regional alternative currencies. While validating my interest in economics, the project helped me discover my interest in cryptography.”
In her paper, Padwekar notes how entrenched financial organizations, such as national banks, have yet to define bitcoins officially as currency, thus avoiding dealing with the many unresolved issues of money that is a string of numbers and not even nominally backed up by specie. Although Padwekar noted that for various reasons bitcoin will probably fail, interest in the subject remains high as digital currency seems like a predictable step in the development of our digital society. Recommended reading for anyone who would like to be able to contribute to the conversation next time the subject comes up!
Harker News has included Angela Ma’s accomplishments as a ballerina in a number of stories, and Ma has now taken her taken her passion from the stage to the library with her analysis, “The Role of Musicianship in George Balanchine’s Enduring Impact on American Contemporary Ballet.” Ma tracks the seminal choreographer as he learned to dance, play, compose and choreograph in his native Russia. So many talents packed into a single person is daunting, and Ma traces his growth through his other talents to that of the ultimate choreographer, despite Balanchine’s assertion that composing, not choreography, earned the “highest seats in heaven.”
Ma’s closely written analysis goes a long way toward explaining the complex relationship between a composition and how a choreographer translates that into dance. She mentions few specifics, but uses great illustrative anecdotes and quotes tell the story of how Balanchine thought, thus choreographed. Though the paper discusses the technical nature of composition, Ma brings forth the passion Balanchine felt in his four-decade collaboration with Igor Stravinsky and illustrates to readers how the partnership between the two men resulted in Balanchine’s timeless choreography.
“I initially chose this topic because dance has been such an irreplaceable and meaningful part of my life,” said Ma. “I wanted to explore ballet in a new way beyond the studio.” Looking back on the process, Ma noted that her mentors helped her to “learn so much about dance and intellectualism.” Ma illustrates the impact of dance, style and the depth that Balanchine brought to ballet, noting that in “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux” he “complements the musical tempo and varying succession of notes with a customized dynamism of movement.”
The only paper that looked outside of the United States for subject matter addressed the similarities and differences between two modern revolutions, those in Poland and Tunisia. As with most revolutions, each government had to wear out its welcome – leaving the population without hope for improvement – before the citizenry pushed back and created such a groundswell of opposition that the governments threw in the towel rather than bring warfare into the picture to repress the revolution. But each kicked off a string of political upheavals in their greater geographical regions and the repercussions from each continue today in both regions.
Maya Madhavan wrote “A comparison of the Causes of the 1989 Collapse of Communism in Poland and the 2010 Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia,” and points out the differences between the populations’ education levels as being one of the determining factors in the instigation of each revolution, while both revolutionary groups shared economic distress. Tunisia’s jobs went to the well-connected and the younger generation saw their college educations going to waste while Poles of all ages suffered reverse after reverse under Communist rule. It goes almost without saying that oppression and corruption flourished in both countries.
Madhavan compared and contrasted the political atmospheres and used an accepted model of revolutions as a template to explain the differences. This paper tells the story of not just these two countries, but of the revolutions that shattered the Soviet Union and revolutions that took place in the Mideast over the last few years. We have not seen the end of conflict in either region, and this paper helps to bring clarity to the reasons these peoples stood tall for freedom.
“What surprised me the most was not their similarities, but their differences,” said Madhavan. “I went into this expecting to see a number of parallels between the two – you could say I overestimated the extent to which I thought history repeats itself. I don’t think I realized just how much the world has changed in the past 20 years, and never really understood the impact that recent technological advantages have had on the dynamics of our world.”
“For a long time,” Duraiswamy said, “my main academic interests have been the founding of America, the Constitution, and the classics, so my topic provided a nice opportunity for me to explore an intersection of these three subjects.”
Duraiswamy noted how Madison fought for not only a bi-cameral legislature, but for two different types of bodies to both represent the people’s stated wishes and to provide a check on those wishes when, motivated by some popular event, they conflicted with sensible progress. While many will have learned of the classical education given to those who could afford it in this country’s formative years, few of us consider what that education meant in terms of framing a document that would withstand challenge after challenge.
This is a paper that opens the door to as many questions as it answer. “The hardest part of the process for me was probably narrowing the focus of my topic,” said Duraiswamy. “In other words, using the greater length of the paper to add depth to my research rather than breadth. Initially, I thought I would explore the Roman influences on the entirety of Madison’s political thought, but after talking to my mentors, I realized that that was not narrow enough.
“If I tried to cover everything, my analysis would not be able to explore the intricacies of his ideas and would not be able to delve into primary sources as much. Instead, it would be better to pick one aspect of Madison’s philosophy and study its classical antecedents. Eventually, I settled upon the idea of the Senate within Madison’s political ideology, but it took me a significant amount of time and effort to get to that point since I had to explore many of his ideas to see which one had the most potential for my topic.”
The thoughtful reader need only reflect on the disarray that occurs in various foreign congresses to see the value in separating those elected as direct representatives of their constituents’ geographical and local political interests, and those that are charged with the task of doing what is right for the nation on a macro level. This was a most enlightening paper and will be relished by anyone interested in ancient and modern history.
Next year’s 2014-15 Near Scholars are Ayush Midha, Karnika Pombra, Apoorva Rangan, Vedant Thyagaraj and Felix Wu; the 2014-15 Mitra Scholars are Aadyot Bhatnagar, Maya Nandakumar, Agata Sorotokin and Stanley Xie.
Since the first grants were made in 2010, 21 original papers have been archived for reference in the John Near Resource Center. All papers are available on the Harker library website. Topics have included “Winston Churchill’s Efforts to Unify Britain From 1940-1941,” “Can Charter Schools Close the Achievement Gap?,” “Arleigh Burke’s Submarine-Based Finite Deterrent: Alternative to the Nuclear Triad,” to name just a few.
Each year, a number of students are selected from applicants to receive the grants and, each year, the completed papers are read, celebrated and archived as part of Harker’s legacy, honoring both donor families for their timeless contribution to both historical research and the intellectual growth of Harker students.
The John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment Fund was established in memory of the 31-year veteran of Harker’s teaching staff, who passed away in 2009. Donors of the $300,000 endowment are James and Patricia Near, John’s parents, and in John’s own words, the proceeds will be used “to help develop the history department, both through the acquisition of resources and providing growth opportunities for both faculty and students.”
The Mitra Family Endowment for the Humanities was established by Samir and Sundari Mitra.“The subject matters taught under humanities such as history, languages, communications and philosophy are critical skills and knowledge that develop well-rounded Harker students,” said Samir Mitra. “Humanities is the bedrock of a superior education and will enable our students to stand out as recognized contributors in their future professions.”
UPDATE: Videos of the keynote speakers, breakout sessions and the panel discussion from this year’s Research Symposium are now available on YouTube.
Science enthusiasts from across the Harker community gathered at the upper school campus on March 29 for this year’s Harker Research Symposium. In the nearly 10 years since its founding, the research symposium has provided lovers of scientific research with an eventful day in which students, parents, faculty and staff meet to share their enthusiasm, see the results of student research and hear from notable members of the scientific community.
The Nichols Hall atrium was once again the epicenter of activity for the event, with exhibitors from companies such as Google, NVidia and the South Asian Heart Center providing information to passersby and holding tech demos. SeaLife Aquarium Maintenance, stationed in front of the atrium’s aquarium, gave attendees the opportunity to observe and touch starfish and other forms of aquatic life. Tesla Motors also had a presence, giving people a chance to test drive one of their award-winning electric cars. Over at the rotunda, Brian Tuan, grade 12, demonstrated a 3-D printer to a steady stream of onlookers as it constructed such objects as a toy car and a plastic model of Batman’s head.
Nichols Hall auditorium and classrooms hosted formal talks by Harker students known as breakout sessions, where students gave detailed presentations on their research projects. Some of these, such as senior Vikas Bhetanabhotla’s project on the identification of the Milky Way’s satellite galaxys and Zareen Choudhury’s investigation of the chemical makeup of stars, earned recognition in prestigious contests such as the Siemens Competition and Intel Science Talent Search. At the gym, middle and upper school students had poster presentations set up showing the results of research they had performed. Students were on hand to answer questions about their research projects, impressing those in attendance with both the depth of the research and their presentation skills.
Morning keynote speaker Claire Max, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at University of California, Santa Cruz, shared her work on adaptive optics with a capacity crowd in the auditorium. Using informative photos and videos, Max showed how turbulence in space can obscure telescopes’ view of the stars. Adaptive optics corrects this distortion using mirrors and laser technology. This technology, she explained, can be used to enhance images of planets and find out where black holes ended up as galaxies collided. It has also been used to enhance images of the human eye, which she demonstrated with close-up videos of blood cells traveling through capillaries.
Two alumni were featured as speakers at this year’s symposium. The first, Ilya Sukhar ’03, shared some of the lessons he learned (including some misconceptions he had during his years as a Harker student) in entrepreneurship as the founder and CEO of Parse, which was acquired by Facebook in 2013. Parse, which still operates independently, enables developers to more easily create mobile apps for multiple platforms. Nikhil Parthasarathy ’11, speaking during a special lunchtime event at Manzanita Hall, discussed his current exploits as an undergraduate at Stanford University, which included exciting work in artificial intelligence. He addressed Harker’s current students, telling them they may end up taking many paths, arriving somewhere they might not have anticipated.
Khan Academy founder Salman Khan was the star of the afternoon, packing both the auditorium and the gym, where all of the keynote addresses were simulcast. Khan talked about how what began as a hobby in 2004 – tutoring his cousin in math – turned into one of the world’s most popular online learning resources, used by more than six million unique visitors each month. During the extended question-and-answer session, Khan was kind enough to move from Nichols Hall to the gym for those who were unable to view his talk in person.
The day ended with a panel discussion featuring upper school science department chair Anita Chetty, science teacher Chris Spenner, Harker parent Manish Gupta (Aarzu, grade 6; Anika, grade 12), junior Jason Chu and seniors Bhetanabhotla, Stephanie Chen, Choudhury, Anika Gupta, Sreyas Misra and Vikram Sundar. The panel discussed the various options offered by Harker’s research program and included student testimonials on their experiences conducting research at Harker.
This story originally appeared in the fall 2013 Harker Quarterly.
From late July to early August, upper school students traveled to Costa Rica to create and present research projects at the University of Georgia’s Costa Rica campus at San Luis. The students spent their time observing local wildlife in the field and doing lab work on their findings. Some of the topics students researched included intra-species bird calls, hermit crab activity and plankton diversity.
The students later presented the results of their research to an appreciative audience at a symposium held at the UGA campus. During breaks from their research, the students went to a science fair being held at a local elementary school, went ziplining over the Costa Rican cloud forest, visited a bat jungle and went rafting.
This article was originally published in the summer 2013 Harker Quarterly.
This past spring, upper school chemistry instructor Rachel Freed headed off to the annual National Association of Research in Science Teaching conference in Puerto Rico. She was invited to attend the conference with a group from Sonoma State University with whom she had previously worked as a research technician.
Freed and her research team presented a paper detailing their findings on student learning and understanding in chemistry, with a focus on misconceptions. She served as project manager of the study, which was sponsored by FACET Innovations, a Seattle-based educational research and development company dedicated to the improvement of learning and teaching in science from elementary through graduate school – what educators call K-20.
“We designed an online formative assessment system (available free at Diagnoser.com) which gives teachers all of the necessary components to integrate formative assessment into their chemistry curricula. A key aspect is the sets of ’diagnose questions,’ with very specific information on exactly what misconceptions their students have within a given topic,” she explained.
In addition to participating in the research, design and creation of the online system, in the summer of 2011 Freed helped train six pilot teachers on formative assessment and the implementation of the system. She then followed them throughout the year, conducting classroom visits and weekly teleconferences to help them use the program and obtain feedback. The project was done in collaboration with researchers at SRI (Stanford Research International) in Menlo Park and FACET Innovations.
“While I was there I met a handful of colleagues with whom I have established relationships for future collaborations. One in particular shared ideas with me on how to teach oxidation-reduction reactions and the research she is doing with her college students. I have already used some of these ideas with my classes here at Harker, and I hope to contribute to her data in the future from my own classroom experiences,” said Freed.
Harker’s maturing endowment program produced six scholars this year, all seniors, who each presented their papers in late April to fellow students, parents, faculty and administrators in the Nichols Hall auditorium.
Established in 2009, the John Near Excellence in History Education Endowment Fund, the first of its kind at Harker, was joined by the Mitra Family Endowment for the Humanities in 2011, and since then there have been nine Near scholars and four Mitra scholars, including this year’s awardees.
The $300,000 John Near fund, established in memory of the 31-year veteran of Harker’s teaching staff who passed away in 2009, was made by his parents, James and Patricia Near, to, in John Near’s words, “help develop the history department, both through the acquisition of resources and providing growth opportunities for both faculty and students.”
Harker parents Samir and Sundari Mitra (Shivani, grade 12) established the Mitra Family Endowment, which matches gifts to the annual giving campaign up to a total of $100,000.
This year’s papers ran the gamut from traditional historical research to an examination of social conditions.
Artists
One of the Mitra scholars is actually a Mitra. Shivani Mitra chose an enduring topic for both artists and feminists: Frida Kahlo, the iconic Mexican painter who explored politics, art, feminism and sexuality during the course of her life. Mitra frankly discussed Kahlo’s sexuality, paintings and politics, often referencing Kahlo’s diary, but the most notable portions of the paper were Mitra’s analyses of the crossovers and tie-ins between these three facets of Kahlo’s nature. One example:
“Frida, who was a supporter of the communist party with Diego (Rivera), wore the clothing that symbolized communist allegiance without acknowledgement to the social norm for women to never be involved in politics. In addition to challenging the political position of females, Frida refused to take on the feminine attitude that wives were supposed to in her second marriage. In a personal essay about Diego for an exhibition of Diego’s work in 1940 Frida wrote, ‘Some people may expect me to paint a very personal, ‘feminine,’ anecdotal entertaining portrait of Diego, filled with complaints and even a certain amount of gossip …’”
“In the beginning of my sophomore year I took AP Art History with Ms. (Donna) Gilbert,” Mitra said at the reception, “and I fell in love with this subject. Art history allowed me to learn about the historical periods and individuals of the past through a painter’s hand or a sculptor’s tools filled with color, texture and emotion that really took me back in time and history. When this opportunity came up, I was intrigued by the idea I could explore one of my favorite artists, Frida Kahlo, in much more depth.”
Duels
Near scholar Nina Sabharwal chose one of the most enigmatic episodes in the personal history of the United States’ founding fathers: the duel between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton that resulted in the death of Hamilton and the destruction of Burr’s political life.
Dueling was regarded as the only honorable way to settle a dispute not then actionable under law, and both men were familiar with the practice both as a deterrent and as a remedy for those making disparaging remarks. Indeed, Hamilton lost his beloved eldest son, Phillip, to a duel prior to his own death and, according to “Hamilton” by Ron Chernow, Hamilton had been on the fringes of six other duels, including acting as a second or adviser. Neither Burr nor Hamilton lived an unimpeachable life. Burr schemed to enrich himself and further his political ambitions becoming a controversial figure in U.S. politics as the young country worked out its growing pains. Hamilton was equally busy trying to solidify his place in U.S. politics and history, and the two clashed in the political arena more than once.
“This project has been a culmination of the years of learning in our history classes,” said Sabharwal. “The research skills I’ve acquired will be invaluable to me in college.”
Sabharwal’s conclusion is that “the famous duel was the result, largely, of ill-will formed between the two men over many years. In the specific, Burr accused Hamilton of speaking ill of him in society and sent his second to call on Hamilton. The deadly meeting between the two seems almost inevitable when their history together is examined.”
Composers Near scholar Ashvin Swaminathan delved into political and musical history to plumb the premise that two of the United States’ most influential composers, Aaron Copland and Leonard Bernstein, both sought to illuminate Hispanic forces in America in their works, especially Copland’s “El Salón México” and Bernstein’s “West Side Story.”
“I really like history because I like finding historical connections between various events,” said Swaminathan, “and I like music and the study of musical history, the study of how the evolution of music and how composers were influenced by the sociopolitical climates of their times. I really wanted to do this research because there has already been much research done on European classical music and how European composers were influenced by the politics of their days. I wanted to create an American parallel for that. Doing this research project has really influenced what I am going to study in college.”
Swaminathan’s work is best defined by a paragraph from his paper: “Copland’s 1936 symphonic work “El Salón México” may be viewed as an artistic reaction to the contemporaneous Mexican Repatriation, and Bernstein’s 1957 musical “West Side Story” must be taken as a politically overt response to the youth gang violence that plagued New York City throughout the 1950s.”
Thus, Swaminathan begins his journey to illuminate what motivated these composers to create works that exposed the cultural pressures of a then-much-overlooked segment of U.S. society. Copland’s composition was stimulated by the forced, government-mandated Mexican repatriation of the 1930, when 500,000 or more people of Mexican heritage, including U.S. citizens, were forced to return to Mexico.
Bernstein’s “West Side Story” is a reflection of the frustration built up as Puerto Ricans emigrated to the U.S. when laws changed granting them citizenship and as World War II created jobs for them on the U.S. mainland. Many ended up in New York.
Swaminathan notes in his paper, “The combination of heightened unemployment on the island, greater perceived job opportunities in alluring mainland U.S. cities like New York and increased affordability of airfares led to a sudden, exponential rise in the migration rate of Puerto Ricans to the U.S. mainland. From 1950 to 1959, a total of about 470,000 Puerto Ricans migrated to the U.S. mainland.”
According to one source, the United States census showed that by 1960 there were more than 600,000 New Yorkers of Puerto Rican birth or parentage, and Swaminathan notes, “As a consequence of New York’s changing ethnic composition, many rivalries arose between teenagers from different ethnic backgrounds; in 1955, New York was plagued by nearly 100 teenage gangs.” It was from these circumstances that Bernstein drew inspiration for “West Side Story.”
Nazi Errors
In a more traditional approach, Mitra scholar Apurva Tandon took on a subject daunting to professional historians, the short- and long-term effects of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact signed in 1931 and the subsequent violation of that pact in 1941 when the Wehrmacht invaded Russia.
The subject of the pact has been covered extensively by noted historians, but Tandon coalesces the primary mistakes by Hitler that led to the ultimate failure of the Third Reich to survive at all, including fighting an ideological war instead of a political/military war and the utter disregard for the economic dependence Germany had on trade with the Soviet Union that was suspended when the invasion of Russia began.
Perhaps her most interesting point, drawn from a Stanford University lecture by Timothy Snyder, was that Hitler saw his invasion as the second phase of the destruction of Eastern European states, after the Soviet Union had started the job. Tandon asserts Stalin’s purges and ruthless collectivization of farms prior to the start of World War II were the opening act to the main show – Barbarossa – of destroying the populations of the satellite states to produce Lebensraum, and that viewpoint has not been widely aired.
“I’ve enjoyed tackling one of the subjects that is so widely explored in the field,” said Tandon, “and just being able to come up with my very own take on that and then put it out there is scary but rewarding – so truly rewarding. My mind is already racing with another follow-up topic that I want to research in college that is kind of an offshoot of this topic, and having this kind of experience under my belt is what is going to make that possible.”
ERA
In her paper, Near scholar Apricot Tang discussed the most important amendment that never passed, the Equal Rights Amendment, as its journey was affected by two ardent feminists from the right and left, Phyllis Schlafly and Betty Friedan. One of the most controversial amendments to be proposed, it was opposed by labor unions and Eleanor Roosevelt, yet supported by President Dwight Eisenhower and the Republican Party. Roosevelt opposed it because it would block legislation designed to protect women workers from harsh factory conditions, and the amendment seemed designed to help educated middle-class women, and so labor unions opposed it, according to Bookrags.com, an educational research site.
There were three life-changing points Tang experienced, she said. “First, I have found role models for myself. Seeking out the research has helped me be inspired by women such as Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan and Phylis Schlafly, all extremely courageous and strong women of their time. Second, I found myself through the research process: searching, reading, being lost, thinking you’re not lost, then returning to the black fold and the sources. It has been a process through which I have found myself. And third, I’ve been learning about the kind of writer, the kind of student and the kind of thinker I am.”
As the feminist movement grew in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s, the amendment seems, in retrospect, to be an obvious step forward in ensuring full rights under the law, but it was opposed by Phyllis Schlafly, a forceful, outspoken advocate for traditional womanhood. The amendment’s path in the 1960s and ‘70s could be seen as a reflection of the changing values Americans were all struggling with as Vietnam split communities, unions lost their ability to speak for the American worker and ethnic minorities advocated for equal treatment and protection under the law. Tang’s paper takes on the complex battle that shaped up between Schlafly and Betty Friedan, who founded the National Organization of Women in 1966 following publication of “The Feminine Mystique” in 1963, which examined women’s roles beyond traditional expectations of homemaking and motherhood.
Economics
Mitra scholar Warren Zhang chose to look at societal economics in his paper on how technological growth negatively affected income equality as technology development replaced manufacturing as a major component of the U.S. economy. This ambitious effort delved into the complexities of the job market, maturing understanding of modern economics technological growth and what it meant to everyone from university graduates to line workers in assembly plants.
Zhang’s conclusion is stated in 10 words in the opening sentence: “Modern technology breeds inequality and inhibits sustainable, broad-based growth.” Zhang notes that the income gap between the college-educated and the high school-educated grew after World War II, saying, “A college degree replaced a high school diploma as the mark of an educated person, and high school graduates and high school dropouts increasingly became substitutes in the labor market.”
He goes on to discuss in depth the changes effected by rising wages for the college-educated, the effect of unionization on both workers’ earnings and their college-educated counterparts. Finally, Zhang presents evidence that the rise in wages for college-educated workers and their ability to work more efficiently due to technology (computers) and the drop in unionization has created a dichotomy in our economy that is not sustainable: “Because modern innovations only make a small subset of skilled workers more productive, they induce damaging, even crisis-provoking, inequality,” Zhang said.
“The important thing, and the crux of my paper, is this idea (that) skills buy technological change. If you work with computers, if it is your job to tell the ‘robots’ what to do, to create the programs that make modern life possible, then the rise of information technology has been a wonderful thing.
“On the other hand, if you have a manufacturing job or you are doing some sort of routine office work, there are robots and there is software that will do your job better, faster and more efficiently, and … will never demand vacation, and that is the crux of it. While the growth of information technology has made workers at the top much more productive and thus given them the skills to demand higher and higher wages, it is also much harder to have a middle class job and a middle class life style if you don’t have those skills.”
Next year’s endowment recipients, all seniors, have been chosen. Mitra scholars are Maya Madhavan, Anisha Padwekar and Monica Thukral; Near scholars will be Kevin Duraiswamy, Zina Jawadi, Divya Kalidindi, Connie Li and Angela Ma.
In late April, grade 8 students Venkat Sankar, Arjun Subramaniam and Davd Zhu and grade 7 students Edgar Lin and Rajiv Movva traveled to Washington, D.C., for the National Science Bowl, in which the team placed fifth overall among 46 other teams hailing from 34 states. Middle school science teacher Vandana Kadam called the placing “a huge achievement for a school that started Science Bowl just three years ago.” Remarkably, the team went undefeated for the first nine rounds of the competition, and were just two rounds away from the championship match.
The team also managed to place 12th in a non-academic portion of the event in which the students had to build a vehicle that could carry a container of salt a distance of 20 meters in the shortest possible time, powered by a lithium ion battery. The Harker team’s vehicle went the distance in 7.6 seconds, just over one second longer than the first-place finisher’s vehicle.
Not ones to let a trip out of state go to waste, the students also saw the many sights offered by the nation’s capital, including the Natural History Museum, the Lincoln Memorial and the Capitol Building.
On March 16, Michelle Douglas, Cristina Jerney, Emily Wang, Amy Grace Wardenburg and Molly Wolfe, all grade 12, were honored by the Heritage Oaks Chapter of the National Charity League, Inc. NCL is a philanthropic organization that fosters mother-daughter relationships through community service, leadership development and cultural experiences. Over the past six years, the five seniors have logged hundreds of volunteer hours (often with their mothers) at many local organizations including the American Cancer Society, Habitat for Humanity – Silicon Valley, Humane Society of Silicon Valley, InnVision, Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and Sacred Heart Community Services.
The students have volunteered more than 2,000 hours combined, and they were honored each year with awards for working at eight or more philanthropies during the year for more than 50, 75 and 100 hours. Mothers and daughters are also honored for working more than 20 hours together. In addition to these awards, Wardenburg has received the President’s Volunteer Service Award for volunteering over 100 hours in a calendar year for all six years she has been volunteering, and Wolfe and Jerney have also each received the award in the past. Wardenburg will also be receiving the Senior Service Award, which is given to the graduating senior with the highest cumulative philanthropic hours earned during her years at National Charity League.
Harker’s eighth annual Research Symposium drew more than 400 attendees, who marveled at the many exhibits, student presentations, breakout sessions and guest speakers that have made the symposium into one of the school’s signature events, unique for being organized largely by the student-run WiSTEM, chemistry, research and Sci Fy clubs.
The upper school campus was abuzz with activity as early as 8 a.m., when the symposium officially began. One of the busiest areas for the entire day was the Nichols Hall atrium and rotunda, where exhibitors such as Google, Ericsson and Symmetricom offered demonstrations of their products and talked with attendees, in addition to providing a mere glimpse at the wealth of career opportunities available to students of the sciences.
One of the more impressive pieces of technology on display was Anatomage’s “virtual cadaver,” a 3-D rendering of a human body that could be examined in amazing detail via a large touch screen, enabling classrooms without access to a real cadaver to study the human body up close.
Elsewhere in the atrium, SeaLife Aquarium Maintenance presented various sea creatures for visitors to view and handle. East Bay Cardiovascular and Thoracic Associates, represented by Harker parent Murali Duran (Rohan, grade 9; Lea, grade 11; Roshan, grade 12), had a heart station set up where visitors could learn how to perform sutures using store-bought pig hearts.
A large portion of the event was devoted to formal talks, also known as breakout sessions, delivered by Harker students. In these talks, students gave presentations on scientific research projects that they had done, many of which earned the students finalist or semifinalist placings in the Siemens Competition and the Intel Science Talent Search. In addition to demonstrating the high level of research being conducted by the students, these sessions also offered students the chance to show their research to (and take questions from) members of the greater scientific community.
The breakout sessions covered a wide variety of topics. Ashvin Swaminathan, grade 12, presented an analysis of surreal numbers, for which he was named an Intel Science Talent Search semifinalist and a Siemens Competition regional finalist. At another session, senior Rohan Chandra, another Siemens regional finalist, discussed the brain’s reaction to various features of Beethoven’s famous fifth symphony. Meanwhile, Siemens semifinalists Anika Gupta and Saachi Jain, both grade 11, presented their research on how an uncharacterized gene may have a hand in lowering the risk of ulcers and gastric cancer.
Middle school students also had their chance to shine, showing the results of their work with the many impressive poster presentations set up in the gym. The enthusiasm of these students was evident as they explained their projects and their implications to the fascinated passersby.
As always, the lunchtime chemistry magic show was a treat for the midday audience, who oohed and aahed at brilliant flames, exploding eggs, liquid-carbon-frozen bananas and other wonders of chemistry, as they enjoyed food freshly prepared by Harker’s kitchen staff.
Also during lunch was a special talk by Nikita Sinha ’09, currently in her senior year at the California Institute of Technology, who discussed the research she was conducting for her senior thesis, as well as the life experiences that led her to choose medical research as a career.
The first of the keynote speakers at the symposium was Dr. Kristian Hargadon, assistant professor of biology at Hampden-Sydney College. Hargadon took the morning audience on a journey through his progression from a young student athlete with dreams of being an NBA star to becoming a decorated cancer researcher, in addition to discussing some of his current work.
Surbhi Sarna ’03, this year’s alumni speaker, shared her story with the early afternoon audience. After suffering from an ovarian cyst in her early teens, Sarna became determined to create better conditions in the field of female health. Toward this end, she founded the venture-backed nVision Medical in 2009 to develop technology that will help gynecologists more quickly detect ovarian cancer.
This year’s featured speaker was Nobel Prize-winning biologist Dr. David Baltimore, whose work at the California Institute at Technology has recently yielded a method for preventing the spread of HIV. Baltimore provided an overview of how his process of injecting a harmless virus containing antibodies into the muscles of mice prevented HIV infection. Baltimore and his team are currently preparing to test this process in humans.
Another highlight of the event was a special panel of notable women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), which included such inspirational figures as Barbara Jones, project manager at the IBM Almaden Research Center; Monica Kumar, senior director of product marketing at Oracle; Tian Zhang, senior software engineer at IBM; and alumna Sinha.
The panel discussed the increasingly important role of women in the sciences, offering their insights into their respective fields as well as advice to the audience of young attendees on how to transform their love of science into successful careers.
The symposium closed with a panel of students and teachers providing students and parents with information on Harker’s research program and the various opportunities available, such as the Siemens and Intel contests, internships and research classes.