Senior Hari Bhimaraju recently published a paper in the Biometrics & Biostatistics International Journal, a peer-reviewed journal specializing in biological sciences and public health. Her paper, titled “Low-cost enhancement of facial mask filtration to prevent transmission of COVID-19,” examines a variety of low-cost masks to determine their effectiveness in containing the spread of COVID-19. “COVID-19 disproportionately affects people in low-income communities, who often lack the resources to acquire appropriate personal protective equipment and tend to lack the flexibility to shelter in place due to their public-facing occupations,” reads the abstract to the paper.
Bhimaraju’s research was part of a summer internship, but due to safety concerns, she had to conduct all of her research at home. “This is a great example of how resourceful our students are in creating independent research opportunities for themselves,” said Anita Chetty, upper school science chair. “But moreover, this is of course a very important piece of work that has societal implications.”
Junior Riyaa Randhawa was recently published in The Milbank Quarterly, a peer-reviewed journal that covers health care policy. The paper, written during a summer internship with Harold Pollack of the University of Chicago, argues that the United States and countries in Central and South America must work together to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Even though this was not a straight science paper, a lot of the skills I used throughout the process of writing this paper were from [upper school science teacher Chris Spenner’s] class,” she said. “The practice and real research papers I wrote in class…really benefited me here!”
Last week, Dr. Abigail Joseph, middle school learning, innovation and design (LID) director, was appointed to the Computer Science Teachers Association’s Board of Directors. Together with the appointment Charity Freeman of Chicago’s Lane Tech College Prep High School, Abigail noted, this decision “is the continuation of a shift that CSTA is deliberately making to change the face of computer science education so that more marginalized groups are granted access to CS education and opportunities to participate in the world in which they live.”
Joseph has been involved with the CSTA since 2012, when she was a computer science teacher at the middle school, and co-founded the San Mateo County chapter in 2015. Last year, Joseph was part of the inaugural cohort of the CSTA’s Equity Fellowship, helping introduce computer science to teachers in other disciplines.
“I have been involved with various organizations help to encourage more non-CS teachers to learn about computer science and integrate it into their discipline,” said Joseph. “I have enjoyed working with teachers in that capacity and focused my Equity Fellowship project on developing professional learning opportunities to demystify computer science for non-CS teachers.” Working with the Connie L. Lurie College of Education at San Jose State University, Abigail gave computer science education workshops “to shift perspectives on what computer science is and why CS education is an equity issue that all teachers should care about.”
Joseph said she is looking forward to bringing awareness to equity issues in computer science education in her position on the board. “As a board member, I hope to bring voice to those that do not normally have the opportunity to share opinions about systems that create inequities and access in the field of CS and CS education,” she said. “It is important that a diverse array of perspectives are accounted for when systems and policies are created in any organization.”
Last week, freshman Sriram Bhimaraju received the third place Wells Fargo Community Innovation Award in Arizona State University’s Sustainability Solutions Science Fair at the middle school level. Bhimaraju’s project is an app called Saagara: Sunscreen Advisors, which checks the ingredients of sunscreen brands to determine if they are a threat to coral reefs. In addition to the app, Bhimaraju also devised a method for removing water pollution that employs beads that absorb polluting chemicals in water.
Bhimaraju has been offered a mentorship opportunity with ASU’s Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service, which will display his work in a future webinar. More than 600 entries were received for the fair since June. In addition to mentorship opportunities, winners also received up to $2,500 in cash prizes.
Today, eighth grader Anika Pallapothu was named one of the top 30 finalists in the 2020 Broadcom MASTERS program. Her project, titled “Predict Using AI: Diagnosing of Diabetic Eye Diseases Using Convolutional Neural Networks for Computer Vision,” details how artificial intelligence can be used to detect diabetic retinopathy, the disease that is the leading cause of blindness. As a finalist, Pallapothu is eligible to participate in the Virtual Broadcom MASTERS event, which takes place Oct. 16-21.
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Sept. 3, 2020:
Yesterday, the Society for Science & the Public announced that 15 Harker students – a school record – are among the top 300 contestants in the 2020 Broadcom MASTERS program, one of the top middle school science competitions in the country. The Top 300 MASTERS entered the competition during the 2019-20 school year by being nominated at a science fair affiliated with the Society for Science & the Public.
Ninth graders Gautam Bhooma, Zachary Blue, Ramit Goyal, Jordan Labio, Ella Lan, Heidi Lu, Anika Maji, Anika Mantripragada and Ananya Sriram; eighth grader Anika Pallapothu; seventh graders Hubert Lau, Serena Lau, Brenna Ren, Kallie Wang and Carissa Wu each received a prize package that includes $125 from DoD STEM and a subscription to Science News magazine. The 30 finalists in this year’s competition will be announced Sept. 16. The final stage of the competition is being held virtually this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This summer, middle schoolers with a passion for scientific research enrolled in the Summer Science Research Society (SSRS), a class in which the students do individual research on topics of their interest and report on their findings. On the final day of the class, students present the results of their research to their classmates and parents. “This is an interest-based, student-driven project and I’m there to facilitate and guide them through the whole process,” said middle school science teacher Kathy Peng, who runs the SSRS.
Students begin by picking a topic and doing background research. They then design experiments to test their hypotheses. Rising eighth grader Abigail Samuel’s project involved using principles of chemistry to bake cookies, including testing how letting dough rest for different periods of time altered texture and flavor. Caden Ruan, a rising seventh grader, designed and built a small-scale version of a machine that picks up plastic waste in the ocean. Rising sixth grader Evan Yuan investigated a new way of making a plant-based hamburger.
Another important element of the class is learning how to present data. Students document the process with graphs and images, and present their research at a virtual symposium, explaining their research methods and conclusions.
Last week, middle school science teacher Tamar Hawk invited environmental activist Tiffany Duong ‘02 to speak with her students about careers in environmental advocacy. Duong, who attended Harker from first grade through grade 12 and was a member of the upper school’s first graduating class, delivered an overview of how she became interested in environmental issues and how her career changed in the ensuing years. She discovered her love for the topic while attending an assembly on the rainforest as a fifth grader. “I wanted to be the person who was standing in front of the bulldozers at the Amazon,” she recalled.
After graduating from UCLA, Duong worked as a renewable energy lawyer, handling contracts and negotiations for solar arrays and wind turbine farms, including California’s Tehachapi Wind Farm and Ivanpah Solar Power Tower. Duong briefly discussed why more states don’t use renewable energy, explaining that issues such as cost and space are considerable hindrances. “There’s not always a storage capability for renewable energy, which makes it hard for some areas to utilize renewable energy,” she said. Politics, including lobbies from major industries, also play a large role. “A lot of people … don’t necessarily believe that climate change is even happening or that this is an issue,” she said.
Duong later discovered that she wanted to be closer to the environment she was working to save, and made a career switch. In 2016, she headed to the Peruvian Amazon, researching biodiversity along newly opened areas of the rainforest, documenting existing species and discovering new ones in order to prevent encroachment from miners and loggers. Her work in ocean advocacy began in 2017, as she helped in the effort to ban drift net fishing in California and tagged sharks in Costa Rica to provide evidence of migratory swimways in order to protect aquatic life. In 2018 she worked to restore coral reefs in the Florida Keys.
Duong continues to go on expeditions in addition to working as an environmental journalist. She advised the students that there is no single most effective way to be an advocate, using her own career as an example. “I’ve worked in law, policy, education and now media, and I think the most effective thing will be the one that you do,” she said. “Whatever you want to do, try it.”
In May, lower school science teacher Enni Chen’s kindergarten and grade 2 students submitted photos and videos of experiments they conducted at home. For a lesson in capillary action – the mechanism by which liquid flows through narrow spaces – students including kindergartner Nora Yan placed paper towels into cups of colored water, resulting in highly colorful creations.
While learning about electricity, second graders learned how to build their own circuits, and student Corinne Chou used her circuit to make a very clever alarm that makes a noise when tripped by an opening door. In another lesson, second graders learned how placing varying amounts of water in glasses causes them to vibrate at different frequencies. Students Sophie Cai, Megan Lin and Sophie Croswhite created videos of themselves playing tunes using arrangements of glasses filled with different amounts of water.
Over the weekend, the upper school’s Science Bowl team competed in the national championship of the US DOE Science Bowl, in which 64 teams from across the country participated. Harker reached the top 16 in the event — held virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic — narrowly missing the top 8 after a toss-up question and a bonus answer. William Zhao also participated in a national math contest and as such was unable to compete in the final two rounds of the Science Bowl.
Feb. 12, 2020:
On Saturday, a team of Harker students won the U.S. Department of Energy’s Regional Science Bowl, held at Stanford University’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. It was Harker’s third victory in four years. The team – made up of sophomores David Dai, Harsh Deep, Rishab Parthasarathy and William Zhao and senior Emily Liu – went undefeated the entire day, at one point rallying back from an 18 to 72 deficit in a match against Saratoga High to win 118 to 76. Upper school chemistry teacher Robbie Korin called it the “most impressive comeback I have seen since I started doing this in 1991.” The team will go on to represent the Bay Area in April at the national championship in Washington, D.C.
Another team of Harker students – freshmen Rohan Bhowmik and Nicholas Wei, juniors Michael Eng and Russell Yang and senior Kyle Li – also performed well, reaching the elimination round before tying for seventh place over all out of 28 teams.
Harker students had a great showing at the 2020 Synopsys Science & Technology Championship, winning multiple first awards and grand prizes. Eighth graders Gautam Bhooma and Ramit Goyal were each grand prize winners, and also won first awards along with fellow eighth graders Zachary Blue, Alex Guo, Jordan Labio, Nathan Liu, Ella Lan and Heidi Lu. All won first awards and qualified for the California Science & Engineering Fair, which has been canceled along with the International Science and Engineering Fair, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sixth graders Brenna Ren, Kallie Wang, Hubert Lau and Serena Lau were also first award winners.
At the high school level, juniors Krishay Mukhija, Sidra Xu, Russell Yang, Nicholas Yi and sophomore Harsh Deep all won grand prizes. Deep, Muhkija, Xu and Yang also took home first awards. Other upper school first award winners were juniors Michael Eng and Aditya Tadimeti and sophomores Akhilesh Chegu and Deven Shah.