Raji Swaminathan’s science class was visited by two IBM scientists on April 5. This was Don Chamberlin’s fourth visit, in his ongoing effort to encourage more students to study engineering and sciences, specifically hoping to bring more women into the engineering field. Accompanying Don Chamberlin was his son, Steve Chamberlin, who is currently a software engineer at IBM.
Don Chamberlin, who has an electrical engineering Ph.D. from Stanford and worked at IBM for 38 years, led the class in a discussion of the “cool” and “not cool” aspects of studying and pursuing a career in engineering. After the discussion, the class conducted activities using binary numbers and learning about the differences between analog and digital. To wrap up the class, Chamberlin showed the class a video made by his IBM colleague John Cohn, who used rap music to encourage burgeoning engineers to continue studying engineering.
In early April Pat Walsh, lower school math teacher, had a pair of engineers from IBM and the Harker community visit his classes. Eric Butler ’81 and Dianne Reese, mother of Greg and Phil Perkins, ’05 and ’07 respectively, came to give students a view of what engineering is all about and how math plays a big part in engineering. Here is fifth grader Ben Hyver’s special report to Harker News Online on the visit.
On Fri., April 8, two former Harker students who now work at IBM as engineers visited Pat Walsh’s math classes. Presenting the interesting topic of Mars rovers, Mr. Butler and Ms. Reese used an NXT-bot to model the real machine that would be sent up to different planets. Our experiment in the classroom consisted of a challenging obstacle course in which we would have to program the rover to steer around. To do this, we would measure the distance from here to there, find the circumference of the wheel, then divide the two. This would give us the number of rotations we needed to complete the movement. After, it would turn and continue on with the program. Watching with amazement, Mr. Walsh’s students were enlightened and inspired by these engineers as they practically demonstrated math to work in space technology. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to experience Mr. Butler and Ms. Reese’s Mars Rover model as this provided a beneficial forty-two minutes of learning and fun.
The Triple Helix Online, the online journal of The Triple Helix, Inc., recently published several stories written by Harker students. The Triple Helix, Inc. (TTH), is an international nonprofit organization made up of students from universities worldwide that specializes in journalism in the fields of science, society, business, ethics and law.
Harker is the first and so far only high school chapter of TTH, which has 27 chapters in universities all over the world and receives funding from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The partnership was kick-started by Jennifer Ong ’06, who is TTH’s chief operating officer. Students Naomi So, grade 12, and Pavitra Rengarajan, grade 11, act as the editors-in-chief for the Harker chapter, and collaborate with TTH senior editors to prepare Harker student submissions for publication.
Basu and Tandon had their writings made into posters, which were displayed at the AAAS Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., which took place Feb. 17-21. The two students were in attendance at the meeting as the guests of Triple Helix. They attended a number of workshops and met members of TTH from other universities, as well as attending talks with top researchers.
Anita Chetty, science department chair, who accompanied Basu and Tandon to Washington, said The Triple Helix offers a way for students to parlay their interests in subjects such as science and technology into an avenue for publication. “They like to look at the issues,” she said. “They’re not necessarily interested in research. They want to do more of a commentary.”
The Harker chapter’s print edition of the Triple Helix magazine will be distributed at the Harker Research Symposium on April 23.
Grade 8 students Matthew Huang, Neil Movva and Andrew Zhang; grade 7 student Jonathan Ma; and Aneesh Samineni, grade 6, placed second in the regional Science Bowl competition, held March 12 at the NASA Ames Research Center. The Science Bowl is a national competition sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and features teams of middle school students answering very difficult questions about a variety of sciences in a quiz bowl environment. The team was well coached by Joseph Chu, an alumnus of Lynbrook High School, who trained the students on Fridays after school.
After qualifying in the initial round robin faceoffs, the Harker team headed on to the elimination rounds, where they lost a very close and intense game in the 11th round against San Ramon’s Gale Ranch, who defeated Harker in the round robins and also took second place nationally in last year’s Science Bowl. “Even the moderator, judges and scorekeepers were spellbound at the end of round 11,” said Vandana Kadam, faculty coordinator at the Science Bowl event and middle school Mathematics Department chair.
The winners of the 2011 Intel Science Talent Search were announced Tuesday, and although Harker’s two finalists, Rohan Mahajan and Nikhil Parthasarathy, both grade 12, were not among top 10 winners, we are tremendously proud of their accomplishment in making it to the finals in Washington, D.C.
Harker was the only school in the U.S. to have more than one finalist, and this year’s contest marked the first time California surpassed New York for the largest number of finalists, with a total of 11 students among the 40 who traveled to Washington for the final round of the competition.
Harker extends its warmest congratulations to all 11 members of the California contingent, especially Evan O’Dorney, 17, of Danville, named the first-place winner of the $100,000 prize for his project, a mathematical comparison of two methods of estimating the square root of an integer. We further extend accolades to the remaining 29 finalists for their impressive application to their projects.
O’Dorney was one of three California students to make the top 10, out of the 1,744 entries from high school seniors nationwide. Selena Li, 17, from Fair Oaks, took fifth place and was awarded $30,000, and San Diego’s Xiaoyu “Carrie” Cao, 17 took eighth and won $20,000. Go science!
Mar. 15, 2011
[Update] KQED radio featured a short interview on their California Report this moring with Nikhil Parthasarathy, grade 12, as he and classmate Rohan Mahajan await the judges’ final decision in the Intel Science Talent Search contest in Washington D.C.. Harker is the only school this year with two finalists in the contest.
The extensive article, lauding the strengths of Harker’s science program, is by veteran reporter Lisa M. Krieger, who made several visits to the campus in February and March to spend time with students and teachers. Longtime Mercury News photographer Patrick Tehan captured the photos for the piece. One impetus for the story was the January announcement from Intel that The Harker School was the only school in the country earning two finalist spots at their annual Intel Science Talent Search in Washington, D.C. Winners are announced March 15, 2011.
The story is inspiring comments from educators, alumni, current students, parents and others passionate about education.
Written for Harker News [Online] by Ramya Rangan, grade 11, WiSTEM Publicity Officer
This January many Harker upper school students found a new way to help the global community by raising funds to improve female education in sub-Saharan Africa.
Harker’s WiSTEM (Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) led a weeklong effort the first week of the new year to raise awareness about the disparity between female and male education rates in the developing world.
Throughout the week, WiSTEM members emphasized that giving a girl an education leads to better health and lifestyles for her entire family. Since female education rates are the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa, the club raised funds for CAMFED, an organization that transfers donations to Africa to send children to school.
To accomplish their goal WiSTEM members sold goods at almost every opportunity, including after school and at lunch. Unlike previous years, the goods were personalized by the club to match the week’s theme. Wristbands featured the slogan “A Chance to Advance,” and freshly-baked cupcakes were decorated with statistics about girls’ education around the world.
In the end, Harker students proved to be more than willing to support this cause. The club raised about $3,000, enough for CAMFED to “help 10 girls stay in high school in the Samfya district of Zambia. That’s 40 years of education,” said senior Josephine Chen, president of WiSTEM.
WiSTEM’s focus during their week was not just to raise money, however; the club primarily sought to increase awareness on the issue of girls’ education. As Chen explained, “While fundraising enables us to provide an immediate, direct impact on many girls’ lives, becoming educated about the cause can allow each and every one of us to continue to support the cause beyond this one week.”
To spread key statistics about girls’ education, WiSTEM gave an interactive and informative presentation during an assembly. The club also posted fliers and posters around the school.
According to Anita Chetty, science department chair and WiSTEM’s advisor, “WiSTEM used a unique way to deliver its message this year,” setting up a trivia game as a spirit competition to promote science literacy and reinforce information on [WiSTEM’s] posters.
The game was modeled after the High School Science Bowl (often called the Quiz Bowl) competition. Each class assembled a team of 10 or more student who were prepared to answer general science trivia questions and questions specific to girls’ education. With the incentive of spirit points and the need to defend class pride, approximately 50 people joined in the event in some way, either by competing or by supporting their friends.
Chetty said she “was very impressed with the number of students who came out to support WiSTEM and their classes.” Chen agreed, noting she “loved that people actually studied the various facts we posted around school” to prepare for the event. The competition served its purpose to educate the student body about the lack of girls’ education around the world.
WiSTEM members intend to continue to support increased education through the year and the club hopes to include the rest of the school in their efforts. Although the club’s week in January focused on education in the developing world, WiSTEM recognizes that education-related issues plague us locally as well.
Therefore, according to Chen, “WiSTEM is hoping to plan various activities at Scott Lane,” a school that educates underprivileged students in the Bay Area. These activities could include “tutoring, creating educational games or staging a mini-science fair.” As January fades into history, Harker students will continue to increase their impact on education levels around the world, thanks to WiSTEM’s ongoing efforts.
Feb. 16, 2011
[Update] Nikhil Parthasarathy and Rohan Mahajan were awarded commendations during the San Jose City Council meeting in mid-February. “The Harker School has a long history of producing high-achieving students,” said Councilman Pete Constant. “Each year since I’ve been representing San José’s Council District 1, it seems I have the chance to recognize such students for their achievements. It’s great to have Rohan and Nikhil carrying on this tradition of excellence and I congratulate The Harker School for being the only school in the nation with two finalists in the Intel Science Talent Search.”
Feb. 9, 2011
San Jose Councilmember Pete Constant has invited Harker Intel Science Talent Search finalists Rohan Mahajan and Nikhil Parthasarathy, both seniors, to attend the San José City Council meeting on Tues., Feb. 15 at 7 p.m. Constant will formally recognize and congratulate the budding scientists for their noteworthy achievement. San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed will invite the young men to the lectern where he and Constant will present the commendation, and give the recipients a chance to say a few words. Read the full story of their Intel wins and of the record seven semifinalists from Harker this year.
Those planning to attend should arrive 10 minutes early. City Hall is located at 200 E. Santa Clara Street, in downtown San José. The meeting is held in the Council Chambers in the Wing section of City Hall.
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.
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.”