In Chris Spenner’s Research Methods Class, upper school students are learning about research methods by researching, planning and conducting their own studies. Spenner’s emphasis in the class has been the teaching of “proper scientific practices” that have included the study of experimental design and statistics.
The projects that the students are currently working on range from human subject studies, such as the effects of caffeine on short term memory, to the hot topic of alternative energy, with a study being conducted on solar panel efficiency. These studies are currently ongoing and represent the culmination of a semester’s worth of effort; about 80 percent of class time is devoted to it. The students have to collect the data for their studies, analyze their results and compose a formal report.
For more information on the research methods course, contact Chris Spenner at ChrisS@harker.org and for more information about Harker students’ research, search “research” at news.harker.org.
This article was originally published in the Harker Quarterly Spring 2011 Edition
Harker managed to reach two milestones in January when Intel announced that seven Harker seniors — Roshni Bhatnagar, Josephine Chen, Benjamin Chen, Rohan Mahajan, Nikhil Parthasarathy, Susan Tu and Jason Young — were named Intel Science Talent Search semifinalists, a California record. Two weeks later Harker became the only school in the nation to have two finalists, Mahajan and Parthasarathy. At press time both were preparing to travel to Washington, D.C., to compete against 38 other high school students in the final round.
October brought the announcement that Jacqueline Wang, grade 10, had been named a regional finalist in the 2010 Siemens competition. Regional semifinalists from Harker were Bhatnagar, Mahajan, Parthasarathy and Supraja Swamy, grade 12.
Students teamed up with mentors to complete the projects they had submitted for the contests. The mentors used their experience and expertise to provide guidance to the students as they conducted their research, while also fostering their intellectual curiosity. “I worked very closely with my mentors to complete the project,” said Parthasarathy, who worked with University of California, Santa Cruz mentors Sandra Faber, professor of astronomy, and Kamson Lai, a postdoctoral scholar in the astronomy and astrophysics department. His project dealt with the structure of distant galaxies. “When I first arrived at Santa Cruz, they gave me a lot of help to understand the necessary background information and also introduced me to many of the tools astronomers use to analyze galaxies.”
“Although only a high school student, I was given the freedom and the resources to pursue any topic that interested me and to contribute my thoughts and ideas during lab meetings and discussions,” said Chen, who studied the effects the compound celastrol has on reducing asthmatic symptoms. “Supported by the guidance of the entire lab, I dared to venture further, performing experiments no one else in the lab was familiar with.”
Working on the projects with mentors in labs also provides insight to the students on the kinds of research and experiments they will be doing at the college level. “The work that Nikhil did is comparable to what we would give a beginning graduate student,” said Faber. “He picked things up remarkably fast, and it was a pleasure working with him.”
Students also get to experience the thrill of making discoveries that could have a significant real-world impact. “Realizing the impact our findings could have on emotion regulation research was a seminal moment for me,” said Bhatnagar, whose project on how the insula, a small part of the brain, changes its size according to how people manage negative emotions earned her a semifinalist ranking in both the Intel and Siemens competitions. “This study was really exploratory. There were very few similar studies to compare with.”
These recent successes bolster Harker’s already impressive track record in these and other science competitions. Mahajan and Parthasarathy became the third and fourth Intel finalists from Harker since the school began participating five years ago, and Wang is the second consecutive regional finalist from Harker in the Siemens competition.
“One of the things that we emphasize at Harker is pushing yourself to reach your potential. It’s just another bar [students] set for themselves,” said Anita Chetty, science department chair. “I just want to offer as many opportunities as I can, and it’s up to the students themselves to decide if they what to participate.”
“The education I got at Harker was invaluable in preparing me for my research,” Parthasarathy said. “Because of the interdisciplinary nature of astrophysics, this project really combined the knowledge I got at Harker in areas such as math, physics and computer science.”
Chetty pointed out that several other departments in addition to science also contribute greatly to Harker’s success in science competitions. At the first January assembly to announce Harker’s Intel semifinalists, teachers from the science department who read the students’ projects and offered guidance in the submission process, noted how much the writing of the projects had improved.
“[The paper is] the only way of communicating what they’ve done and what they think about it,” Chetty said. “It has to be detailed enough, yet it has to be clear and you can’t ramble on.” She credited Harker’s English and history departments as well as its librarians for training the students to write high-caliber papers.
“It gets back to the standard that we set in each of our departments,” she said. “I really believe it’s important to recognize we are actually teaching the same skills, even though we may be using different disciplines.”
This article originally appeared in the spring 2011 Harker Quarterly.
Harker managed to reach two milestones in January when Intel announced that seven Harker seniors — Roshni Bhatnagar, Josephine Chen, Benjamin Chen, Rohan Mahajan, Nikhil Parthasarathy, Susan Tu and Jason Young — were named Intel Science Talent Search semifinalists, a California record. Two weeks later Harker became the only school in the nation to have two finalists, Mahajan and Parthasarathy. At press time both were preparing to travel to Washington, D.C., to compete against 38 other high school students in the final round.
October brought the announcement that Jacqueline Wang, grade 10, had been named a regional finalist in the 2010 Siemens competition. Regional semifinalists from Harker were Bhatnagar, Mahajan, Parthasarathy and Supraja Swamy, grade 12.
Students teamed up with mentors to complete the projects they had submitted for the contests. The mentors used their experience and expertise to provide guidance to the students as they conducted their research, while also fostering their intellectual curiosity. “I worked very closely with my mentors to complete the project,” said Parthasarathy, who worked with University of California, Santa Cruz mentors Sandra Faber, professor of astronomy, and Kamson Lai, a postdoctoral scholar in the astronomy and astrophysics department. His project dealt with the structure of distant galaxies. “When I first arrived at Santa Cruz, they gave me a lot of help to understand the necessary background information and also introduced me to many of the tools astronomers use to analyze galaxies.”
“Although only a high school student, I was given the freedom and the resources to pursue any topic that interested me and to contribute my thoughts and ideas during lab meetings and discussions,” said Josephine Chen, who studied the effects the compound celastrol has on reducing asthmatic symptoms. “Supported by the guidance of the entire lab, I dared to venture further, performing experi- ments no one else in the lab was familiar with.”
Working on the projects with mentors in labs also provides insight to the students on the kinds of research and experiments they will be doing at the college level. “The work that Nikhil did is comparable to what we would give a beginning graduate student,” said Faber. “He picked things up remarkably fast, and it was a pleasure working with him.”
Students also get to experience the thrill of making discoveries that could have a significant real-world impact. “Realizing the impact our findings could have on emotion regulation research was a seminal moment for me,” said Bhatnagar, whose project on how the insula, a small part of the brain, changes its size according to how people manage negative emotions earned her a semifinalist ranking in both the Intel and Siemens competitions. “This study was really exploratory. There were very few similar studies to compare with.”
These recent successes bolster Harker’s already impressive track record in these and other science competitions. Mahajan and Parthasarathy became the third and fourth Intel finalists from Harker since the school began participating five years ago, and Wang is the second consecutive regional finalist from Harker in the Siemens competition.
“One of the things that we emphasize at Harker is pushing yourself to reach your potential. It’s just another bar [students] set for themselves,” said Anita Chetty, science department chair. “I just want to offer as many opportunities as I can, and it’s up to the students themselves to decide if they what to participate.”
“The education I got at Harker was invaluable in preparing me for my research,” Parthasarathy said. “Because of the interdisciplinary nature of astrophysics, this project really combined the knowledge I got at Harker in areas such as math, physics and computer science.”
Chetty pointed out that several other departments in addition to science also contribute greatly to Harker’s success in science competitions. At the first January assembly to announce Harker’s Intel semifinalists, teachers from the science department who read the students’ projects and offered guidance in the submission process, noted how much the writing of the projects had improved.
“[The paper is] the only way of communicating what they’ve done and what they think about it,” Chetty said. “It has to be detailed enough, yet it has to be clear and you can’t ramble on.” She credited Harker’s English and history departments as well as its librarians for training the students to write high-caliber papers.
“It gets back to the standard that we set in each of our departments,” she said. “I really believe it’s important to recognize we are actually teaching the same skills, even though we may be using different disciplines.”
Jan. 26, 2011
Intel representatives returned to Harker today to announce that Nikhil Parthasarathy and Rohan Mahajan, both grade 12, were named finalists in this year’s Intel Science Talent Search. They will travel to Washington, D.C., from March 10-15 to compete as two of the 40 finalists selected from around the country.
The announcement, made at a special lunchtime assembly, was accompanied by the news that Harker is the only school in the country with more than one finalist. Notably, California this year finally surpassed New York as the state with the highest number of finalists, with a total of 11 students. Harker had a record seven semifinalists in the contest, this year.
Parthasarathy’s project used recently gathered data to study the structures of distant galaxies and find out how similar or different they were to galaxies in the local universe. He was mentored by Dr. Sandy Faber, professor of astronomy at U.C. Santa Cruz, and Dr. Kamson Lai, a postdoctoral scholar at the U.C. Santa Cruz department of astrophysics.
Mahajan, whose project involved developing a hydrogen-producing solar cell as a source of renewable clean energy, worked with Dr. Yat Li, assistant professor of chemistry at U.C. Santa Cruz, and was mentored at Harker by Mala Raghavan, upper school chemistry teacher and, incidentally, Parthasarathy’s proud mother.
Today’s announcement followed on the heels of one two weeks ago, when a record seven Harker students were named semifinalists in the competition.
Both students will receive a cash prize of $5,000 upon their arrival in Washington, D.C., and will compete for the top prize of $100,000, as well as meet Nobel laureates and members of congress.
The Harker Research Program, which enables upper school students to pursue the wonder of science through serious, original research, is now calling for proposals from those who would like to present findings from a summer internship or school project.
The 2011 Harker Research Symposium, titled “A Call to Innovation,” to be held April 23 in Nichols Hall on the Harker upper school campus, is a salute to the computer science and technology industries. Scott McNealy, founder of Sun Microsystems and a Harker parent, will be the afternoon keynote speaker, with a morning keynote speaker to be announced. Read more about this year’s symposium. Proposal deadline is Jan. 28. Visit our web page or download the Call for Proposal flier and poster.
This story was originally published in the Spring 2010 Harker Quarterly
On Jan. 13, Intel announced four Harker seniors had made it to the semifinals of the Intel Science Talent Search: Namrata Anand, Vishesh Jain, Kevin Zhang and Andrew Zhou. These four became the latest in a long line of Harker students, 17 since 2006, to reach the upper ranks of the competition.
Two weeks later, Anand was named a national finalist, the second since Harker began participating in the contest four years earlier. The first, Yi Sun ‘06, went on to place second in the national competition. For her efforts, Anand was awarded $7,500 and earned the trip to Washington, D.C., to compete among the nation’s top 40 contestants for a $100,000 grand prize. Intel is just part of the equation, though.
Just months earlier, Alex Han, Gr. 12, was announced as a regional finalist in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology. Since Christopher Sutardja ’06 was named a regional semifinalist in his senior year, Harker has produced regional semifinalists every year in the Siemens competition, which annually receives thousands of entries. Both Han and Anand will display their projects at the Harker Research Symposium in April.
“It’s hard to really describe the number of hours that students invest in these research projects,” said Katherine Schafer, upper school biology teacher and head of the research program. “The students work full time throughout most of the summer conducting the actual research.” She noted that some students continue their research into the school year. Rising seniors entering the Siemens competition usually spend the first two weeks preparing for the entry deadline at the beginning of October.
“The papers are 18 pages in length and require extensive library research on their specific fields and often countless hours of analysis,” Schafer added. “Many of my experiments involved treating cells and observing them over a time course, so I spent a great deal of time in the culture room and worked about 50 to 60 hours per week over a 10-week period,” Han estimated.
Because of the work research students perform day to day for their classes, these tasks may actually be less daunting to them than for other high school students. “I think the research these students are doing and the skills they are developing by communicating the results of their research gives these students a big advantage over most students entering college,” Schafer said. “They have an idea of how much work is involved in research and can do things that many students entering graduate school cannot do.”
Harker’s success in these and other competitions is also due in no small part to the mentors with whom the students work while researching for and assembling their projects. Since Sutardja first enlisted the help of Gerald Fuller, a professor from Stanford University, mentors have played a crucial part in the success of projects produced by Harker students. Fuller mentors students to this day.
While working on his project for the Siemens competition, Han was mentored by Dr. Jonathan Hardy at Stanford University. “I was very thankful that he gave me the freedom to design and pursue my project independently from those ongoing in the lab, because I gained a consummate understanding and mastery of the research process while also having the opportunity to make a personal contribution to medical research,” Han said.
Raja Guhathakurta, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California at Santa Cruz, headed up the mentoring effort for three of Harker’s most recent Intel semifinalists. He and three graduate students helped the Harker students gather data for projects that covered the Andromeda galaxy. In the last decade, Guhathakurta has served as a research mentor “to scores of high school students,” he said.
Guhathakurta became involved with Harker after meeting science department chair Anita Chetty early last year. “It was a pleasure to work with such bright and motivated students,” he said. “We would frequently sit down to brainstorm ideas for solving specific problems and that was always fun.”
The biggest benefit Guhathakurta thought students gained from the experience was the ability to approach abstract problems. “In research, the act of looking for the answer to a particular question can often lead to more questions instead of a definite answer,” he said. “This can lead to great progress in thinking and knowledge,” he said. “Part of this experience is imbibing the culture and sociology of a particular area of science, in this case astronomy.”
Chetty said it is also important for students to witness the day-to-day life of a scientist, which can provide invaluable insight into their choice of a possible career. “Sometimes research is not very glamorous,” she quipped. “It’s many, many hours. It’s very repetitive. It can be frustrating. You can find out on Friday that you made a mistake on the previous Tuesday, and that’s why your results all failed.”
The thrill of discovery, however, is what makes the hard work all worth it. “I think that’s the beauty of the mentor-student relationship,” Chetty said. “It’s the long-term commitment, the enthusiasm, the excitement of discovering something together.”
Mentors are not necessarily people from outside the school. Sushant Sundaresh ’08, who was a Siemens regional semifinalist as a senior, worked with upper school biology teacher Matthew Harley, who according to Chetty spent “hundreds of hours” with Sundaresh to help compile data for his project.
Science department teachers also coach students on how to compile the results of their research and communicate them in papers and oral presentations. There are, of course, many research projects produced by students each year that are worthy of recognition, whether or not they earned placement in contests. The Harker Research Symposium, which takes place this year on April 10, has and will continue to provide a forum for many of these projects to receive well-deserved attention (see page 17 for symposium details).
Since its inception in 2006, the symposium, the brainchild of Chetty, has been modeled after the environment of an authentic research conference, and is open to students in Gr. 6-12. For many students, the symposium is an opportunity to share the results of their labor with fellow students and their peers outside of school. The symposium has also gained recognition and prestige for the guest speakers it has attracted over the years.
This year’s symposium, which pays tribute to the medical devices industry, will feature materials scientist Chris Gilbert as a keynote speaker. Gilbert has been involved with taking a product from development to approval by the Food and Drug administration, and eventually to manufacturing and sales.
“He was involved in all of the parts of the process involved beyond the research part, beyond the discovery,” Chetty said. Several exhibitors will also be visiting Harker during the symposium, displaying various medical technologies such as an ultrasound machine and an artificial heart valve, among others.
In addition, visitors to the symposium will have a chance to see Harker’s scientific talents shine. “I just think that the caliber of the student presentations continues to improve,” said Chetty. “As we’re reaching down into the middle school, the younger students are learning about research. We’re seeing an escalation in the caliber of the presentations.” For more information on Harker’s science program, visit http://skylark.harker.org/hno/backups and search for “science.”
Jan. 12, 2011
Harker set a new California record for Intel Science Talent Search semifinalists on Jan. 12, with seven students being named at a special morning assembly.
The students – Roshni Bhatnagar, Josephine Chen, Benjamin Chen, Rohan Mahajan, Nikhil Parthasarathy, Susan Tu and Jason Young, all grade 12 – were each awarded a $1,000 prize and have a chance to travel to Washington, D.C., in March for the final competition. The first place winner will receive a $100,000 grand prize.
Projects ranged from researching optical coatings for telescope lenses to comparisons of distant galaxies to those more proximate. Each student partnered with university-level mentors to perform the research for his or her project. Most students also had a Harker mentor to help the students write and finalize the project. Bhatnagar worked with Nicole Giuliani, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University. Her Harker mentor was Savitha Sastry, upper school biology teacher. Dr. Sophie Kusy, postdoctoral research fellow, and Joel Dudley, bioinformatics specialist, both from Stanford, worked together with Josephine Chen, whose Harker mentor was Anita Chetty, science department chair.
Benjamin Chen was mentored by Dr. Raja Guhathakurta, professor at UC Santa Cruz’s department of astronomy and astrophysics, and Dr. Evan Kirby, a postdoctoral scholar at CalTech. Chris Spenner, upper school physics teacher, acted as his Harker mentor. Mahajan completed his project with Dr. Yat Li, assistant professor of chemistry at UC Santa Cruz and was mentored at Harker by Mala Raghavan, upper school chemistry teacher.
Parthasarathy was mentored by Dr. Sandy Faber, professor of astronomy at UC Santa Cruz and mother of Harker alumna Holly Faber MS ’89, and Dr. Kamson Lai, postdoctoral scholar at UCSC’s department of astrophysics. Lick Observatory’s David Hilyard, optician, Brian Dupraw, optician, and Dr. Andrew Philips, astronomy researcher, acted as Tu’s mentors. Her Harker mentor was Dr. Mark Brada, upper school physics teacher. Jason Young completed his project with mentorship from Dr. Wei Wang, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry and UC San Diego and was mentored at Harker by Dr. Matthew Harley, upper school biology teacher. Finalists will be announced in two weeks.
The Harker Research Symposium, providing a forum for Harker students to foster their passion for science since 2006, promises to offer more excitement for science enthusiasts in 2011. The symposium, to be held April 23, 8- a.m. -4 p.m. in Nichols Hall, is titled “A Call to Innovation,” and is a salute to the computer science and technology industries. Scott McNealy, founder of Sun Microsystems and a Harker parent, will be the afternoon keynote speaker, with a morning keynote to be announced pending finalization.
“We’re trying to do a two-fold approach this year with our exhibitors,” said Anita Chetty, science department chair. “We want to salute the historical development of Silicon Valley.” The symposium will also take a look toward the future and showcase ideas in development that have yet to reach consumers. Chetty also hopes the symposium will stand as a tribute to Harker’s own contributions to the industry, as many of its graduates and parents have had successful careers in technological fields.
To this end, Chetty has been working with a committee of parents to help gather exhibitors. The exhibitors, she says, will offer interactive displays for visitors to enjoy, in addition to the keynote speakers and student presentations that have become staple aspects of the symposium. Parents interested in helping to bring exhibitors to the research symposium are encouraged to contact Chetty by e-mailing anitac@harker.org.
As always, students in grades 6-12 will play a key role in the symposium, with student poster displays and paper presentations remaining central to its purpose. Submission deadline is Jan. 28. The student organization WiSTEM (Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) will again have a large hand in planning and running the event.
In October, Jacqueline Wang, grade 10, was named a regional finalist for this year’s Siemens Competition. Harker regional semifinalists were Roshni Bhatnagar, Rohan Mahajan, Nikhil Parthasarathy and Supraja Swamy, all grade 12.
Each Harker student entering the competition worked with a mentor to do research for their projects. Parthasarathy, for instance, worked with Dr. Sandra Faber, mother of Holly Faber MS ’89, and Wang collaborated with a mentor from Stanford University.
More than 2,000 students from 36 states participated in this year’s Siemens Competition. Of those, 312 became regional semifinalists, and were regional finalists. The mentorships were set up through Harker’s internship program, which is coordinated by Anita Chetty, science department chair. “The entire science department shares in this great achievement,” Chetty said.
This story was originally published in the Fall 2010 issue of Harker Quarterly
Costa Rica
In late July, Anita Chetty, upper school science department chair, and Gary Blickenstaff, upper school biology teacher, traveled to Costa Rica with seven students for the annual summer trip to Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad (National Biodiversity
Institute, or INBio for short). They toured the institute’s wonderful facilities, including its restricted areas.
Wildlife sightings were, of course, frequent and always exciting. Students were able to see such local fauna as sloths, bullet ants, monkeys and a family of screech owls. They also experienced weather that at times caught them off-guard. “The humidity was oppressive,” Chetty said in one of several travelogues from the trip. “I reminded everyone that people pay a lot to go to spas so they can [similarly] sweat and expand their pores. They did not seem to care.”
Adventure was in great supply during the trip. Whitewater rafting in the Sarapiqui River was one of the highlights. “The river did not disappoint us as we negotiated raging rapids and tried hard not to fall in or capsize,” Chetty reported. “We did not want it to end!” The group also took a night hike, during which the students made the screech owl sighting. “Some people travel to this area for decades in search of this owl,” Chetty wrote. They also trekked to Arenal Volcano, which has experienced eruptions since 1968. “It just blew a plume of smoke about five minutes ago,” wrote Chetty as the group peered from an observation deck.
For the service part of their trip, the students traveled to the Pacific coast of Costa Rica, where they worked to protect the area’s sea turtle population. They did so by helping to build a new nursery, moving more than 100 eggs to new locations to keep them safe from poachers and even releasing hatchlings into the ocean. “All of these activities are new for the Harker program, and our students have had ample opportunity to directly engage in conservation practice,” Chetty wrote.
The group then visited a one-room schoolhouse with five students, aged 6 to 12. Chetty “was very impressed with [our students’] Spanish-speaking skills! Harker’s students performed a skit in Spanish on preventing dengue fever, and created art projects with the young students. “I was moved by the thought that here we were from such a privileged school, offering something to young children in a very remote location,” Chetty said.
The next stop was the University of Georgia’s Costa Rica campus where students were given the opportunity
to work on their independent research projects. There, Dr. Diana Lieberman, ecology instructor, provided them with the tools and knowledge to conduct their studies. The students participated in group activities in addition to research they performed on their own. “These are not the tried-and-true labs that students are accustomed to doing,” Chetty said in an e-mail. “Much of the learning comes from dealing with unpredictability. Equipment fails or the weather does not cooperate.”
Students went beyond the call of duty for their projects. Michael Prutton, grade 12, journeyed into an enclosure at a bat exhibit to retrieve echolocation signals, while fellow senior Appu Bhaskar was so eager to work he had to be ushered out of the lab at closing time when working on his project on arsenic concentrations in geothermal springs.
During the final stage of the trip, the students presented their research at a symposium held at the UGA Costa Rica campus, and each student received a certificate in tropical biology from UGA.Chetty wrote that Lieberman was “very impressed with not only how clever our kids are, but how committed they are to their individual studies.”
Galapagos
Matthew Harley, upper school biology teacher, and Mala Raghavan, upper school chemistry teacher, headed to the Galapagos Islands with 10 students in July for a special “ecotourism” trip, meant to introduce the students to the archipelago’s unique animal and plant life.
The group began with a stop in Quito, Ecuador, where they took a tour of the “old city” and its many fantastic churches. They enjoyed a great lunch while also learning about Amazonian culture, including such rituals as head shrinking.
After arriving in the Galapagos, the students and teachers met with their guides and boarded a boat to travel to the various islands for the next seven days. They saw many kinds of wildlife, and even snorkeled alongside sea lions and dolphins. “While on the cruise, we snorkeled almost every day and sometimes twice a day,” said Harley. Other times they shared paths with iguanas and lava lizards, and while walking in the highlands, saw dozens of tortoises. One highlight was a visit to the Charles Darwin Research Station, where they sighted Lonesome George, the last known specimen of the Pinta Island tortoise species, estimated to be anywhere from 60 to 90 years old. Following the cruise, the group went to Santa Cruz, the Galapagos’ second largest island, to visit the FUNDAR (in English, the Foundation for Alternative Responsible Development in Galapagos) station, which helps to educate local farmers and aid them in restoring their land. “Invasive species, poor farming practices, poachers and the tourism industry in general are dramatically changing the ecosystem and threatening the extinction of species like the tortoise,” Harley said. “We helped the station remove invasive blackberry brambles and feed native seedlings for planting.” The students and chaperones ate “very well,” he added. “Most or all of the food was grown or raised on Santa Cruz Island.”
After their lengthy stay in the Galapagos, the teachers and students headed back to Quito for one final round of shopping at the bazaar and sampling the exotic flavors of Quito cuisine serenaded by the Ecuadoran version of a mariachi band – a memorable end to a great trip!
Journalism Trips
Summer was full of fun and work for Harker journalism students, who traveled to Hawaii and New York for workshops. The first contingent, made up of 17 editors, flew to Hawaii in early June. While enjoying the breathtaking scenery, students scoured the area for potential stories, interviewing locals and tourists for articles they would later publish online. They also worked on their photojournalism skills by taking on photography assignments. Group projects and planning for the 2010-11 year were also on the agenda. The students attended a talk by journalist C.W. Henderson, who is, among other things, a former movie executive with TriStar Pictures and founder of the medical and pharmaceutical publishing company NewsRx. Under Henderson’s direction, the students worked on exercises in phenomenological writing, or the practice of relating through prose the human observations of scientific phenomena.
In their free time, the students tried their hands at snorkeling, canoeing, surfing and boogie boarding, in addition to taking advantage of the innumerable sightseeing opportunities offered by the island of Maui. Local cuisine, deep-sea fishing and a luau were also part of the festivities.
During the second half of June, a group of nine Harker journalists headed to New York City for the Columbia Scholastic Press Association’s Summer Journalism Workshop. The program gave students an opportunity to sharpen their writing, editing and design skills through classes plus individual and group assignments. Five Harker students received awards at the workshop: Lorraine Wong, grade 10, for best review and best page design (team); Kevin Lin, grade 10, for best page design (team); Sanjana Baldwa, grade 11, for best layout; and Alisha Mayor, grade 11, for best feature.
Fun was obviously on the agenda as well, with students photographing celebrities at a movie premiere, catching a musical and visiting staple NYC landmarks such as Central Park and Coney Island.
As in Hawaii, the students in New York also published stories about their experiences. Be sure to view them at http:// www.talonwp.com/category/summer/.