Cynthia Chen, grade 9, earned the second place prize in the Broadcom MASTERS Competition in the science division! She will receive a $2,500 award for her efforts. Nice article in the Mercury: http://www.mercurynews.com/2016/11/05/school-scene-students-win-science-honors/. Congratulations Cynthia!
Update: Another great article on Chen’s project! https://www.sciencenewsforstudents.org/blog/eureka-lab/teen-develops-water-saving-pods-seeds
UPDATE: Oct. 7, 2016
The Los Altos Town Crier recently published a story about the project that earned freshmen Aarzu Gupta and Maya Shukla semifinalist recognition in this year’s Broadcom MASTERS competition.
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UPDATE: Sept. 23, 2016
Earlier this week, Cynthia Chen, now grade 9, was named one of 30 national finalists in this year’s Broadcom MASTERS competition. The second finalist in Harker’s history, Chen has received a $500 cash prize and will head to Washington, D.C. in late October for the to compete for $100,000 in awards.
Chen’s project aimed to alleviate the problems caused by California’s ongoing drought by creating a capsule that housed seeds surrounded by water crystals, allowing them to grow with just a third of the water usage.
Good luck to Cynthia this October!
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Last week, the Society for Science & the Public announced that Harker freshmen Cynthia Chen, Aarzu Gupta and Maya Shukla were among 300 students nationwide named semifinalists in this year’s Broadcom MASTERS competition. Chen, Gupta and Shukla entered the competition last year while in eight grade. A total of 2,434 applicants entered this year’s competition.
The Broadcom MASTERS (Math, Applied Science, Technology and Engineering Rising Stars) competition highlights the work of middle school scientists from across the country. The top 10 percent of middle school participants at society-affiliated science fairs are nominated to participate, and must then submit an application to enter the competition. Each application is rigorously reviewed by professionals in science, engineering and education.
Finalists are scheduled to be announced next week. Stay tuned!
In June, Harker students Michael Kwan, Jimmy Lin, Sahana Srinivasan, Justin Xie, Shaya Zarkesh, Randy Zhao and Jerry Chen, now all grade 11, were named the best team in the country at the Test of Engineering, Aptitude, Mathematics and Science (TEAMS) National Conference in Nashville.
TEAMS is a STEM-based competition in which high school students apply their knowledge to solve current and upcoming challenges. Each year, a theme is chosen, and students compete at various regional events before the top-ranking teams meet at the National Conference to vie for the title of Best in Nation. At the state level, teams first submit a thoroughly researched essay. At the competitions, they take a multiple-choice exam and are tasked with completing a design challenge using provided materials.
This year’s theme was space exploration, and at the Nashville event the Harker team gave a presentation on space colonization. Their essay covered the field of optogenetics (controlling cells in living tissue through the use of light), which they studied in preparation for the exam portion of the competition.
“We all researched different topics in our spare time and then gathered once a week over the summer to pool everyone’s research together and discuss our strategy going forward,” Lin told the Winged Post. “Our whole team learned a lot through working together on the group events, and it was definitely exciting to see our hard work pay off when we ultimately came out on top.”
Last week, grade 7 science students put their engineering skills to the test by building airplanes in the middle school campus’ innovation lab. Teacher Raji Swaminathan had taken the students to the middle school amphitheater to try out normal paper airplanes when, she said, “Scott [Kley Contini, grades 6-8 Learning, Innovation and Design Director], who was walking by, asked me if the Innovation Lab could have helped the kids build the planes.”
The students then headed to the lab and were instructed to build planes with the wealth of materials that were available to them. Kley Contini offered the students advice on how to get creative as they worked on their aircraft. One group of students went so far as to construct a wind tunnel to test the effects of tailwinds and headwinds. “I would’ve used just a fan, but Scott came up with the idea for a wind tunnel that would channel the breeze from the fan through which the plane flew,” said Swaminathan. “It was just a fantastic experience for those of my classes who were able to go to the Innovation Lab.”
Last week, sophomore Shaya Zarkesh – via his company, Polyup, which he co-founded last fall – held an event at the upper school campus to help students develop computational thinking skills. “We were holding a workshop for students to explore searching algorithms through a presentation and a set of problems that they worked on in teams,” Zarkesh said.
Polyup teaches students “how to design efficient algorithms to solve computational problems,” he explained. “These are the sort of problems that engineers, physicists and data scientists face every day.” The company achieves this by using chatbots designed to suit the learning needs of each student. Polyup also employs what it calls “playgrounds” on mobile devices to allow users to apply computational thinking concepts to solving a variety of problems.
The company was co-founded by Zarkesh, renowned math professor Yahya Tabesh and entrepreneur Shahin Hedayat. Workshops similar to the one held at Harker have been held by Tabesh at The Nueva School, which Zarkesh said were a “huge success.” More info is available at the company’s website.
The 2016 Physics Bowl wrapped up in May, and Harker placed second in its region in Division II (for second-year physics students) and was ranked 122 worldwide. Each year, about 10,000 students participate in the competition, which consists of a 40-question timed test. Harker students who tested for this year’s Physics Bowl were Akshay Ravoor, Ayush Pancholy, Cindy Wang, Enya Lu, Katherine Tian, Kaushik Shiavakumar, Mathew Mammen, Nishant Ravi and Rithvik Panchapakesan, all grade 9; Edgar Lin, Jimmy Lin, Neelesh Ramachandran, Shaya Zarkesh and Swapnil Garg, all grade 10; and David Zhu, Manan Shah, Misha Ivkov, Peter Wu and Steven Cao, all grade 11.
Last weekend, seniors Vivek Bharadwaj, Elina Sendonaris and Jessica Zhu, and junior Manan Shah competed in the US Invitational Young Physicists Tournament in Lynchburg, Va., where they finished as finalists. Harker won the tournament last year, so was the team to beat this year. The 2016 team was among 11 that participated in the tournament, which was held in a round-robin format in which one team, acting as the reporter, displayed a solution to a physics problem that the opposing team, known as the opponent, then investigated by discussing the strong and weak points of the solution. Naman Jindal, Alice Wu and Tong Wu, all grade 12 and Neelesh Ramachandran, grade 10, assisted the competitors.
A project by seniors Jonathan Ma and Sadhika Malladi, titled “Systematic Analysis of Sex-Linked Molecular Alterations and Therapies in Cancer,” was recently published by Nature Scientific Reports. Nature, one of the world’s top science publications, uses its Scientific Reports website to publish original research to a wide audience. Every manuscript submitted to Scientific Reports is peer reviewed before being published and hosted on Nature.com, which is viewed by more than 8 million unique visitors per month.
This article originally appeared in the winter 2015 Harker Quarterly. Access the full issue, with live links, at Harker’s issuu.com page: http://issuu.com/theharkerschool/docs/harker_quarterly_winter_2015.
The students at Harker Preschool have long had a sweet spot for bees. But now they are buzzing with excitement over becoming the first local preschool to receive a grant from the Planet Bee Foundation’s “Humble Honey Bee Project,” which awarded them a daylong workshop.
Held on the Union campus in the fall, the hands-on presentation was part of a larger effort sponsored by Whole Foods Market stores throughout Northern California, which partnered with Planet Bee to bring educational workshops to schools and nonprofits.
“Change the world, one bee at a time” is the motto of Planet Bee, a self-described “trailblazing nonprofit with a mighty green mission.” The foundation brought its unique program to the preschool, thanks to the grant awarded to Harker’s STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) specialist, Robyn Stone.
“Our preschool students are wild about bees! Over the summer I submitted an application to the Planet Bee Foundation for Harker Preschool to participate in the program, and we were selected as a participating school!” recalled Stone, who is also a science/math instructor for the University of California, Santa Cruz Extension.
On Oct. 13, the entire preschool was treated to the bee presentation, which took place in the outdoor amphitheater with fun activities spilling over to the adjacent grassy field. The program included a variety of games as well as an observation of a live beehive (encased in Plexiglas).
Each session focused on honeybee biology. “When children have a deeper understanding of how bees help pollinate the plants that make our food, they may become strong stewards of the environment as they grow up,” Stone explained.
“I really liked learning all about bees and how honey is made!” enthused Heidi Singh, a 3-year-old student in the preschool’s Acorn Cottage. She and her pals were busy as bees during the presentation, taking in all the activities, becoming increasingly engaged in what they later learned was called melittology (the study of honeybees).
Planet Bee Foundation offers on-site, hands-on workshops to schools, nonprofits, local communities, backyard beekeepers and corporations. It also conducts fundraising benefits and offers an Adopt-A-Hive Program.
“These programs are created for deep experiential learning that leaves students inspired. Our Bee Basics curriculum is in line with the Common Core Standards and focuses on the honey bee, pollination, colony collapse disorder, and providing tools for students to help make a difference,” said Debra Tomaszewski, the foundation’s co-founder and executive director.
Tomaszewski is a former public school teacher, college professor and curriculum writer. Her husband, William Tomaszewski, is the foundation’s co-founder and head beekeeper. He’s kept hives personally for more than 15 years.
“Harker Preschool is our youngest audience ever!” enthused Kayla Friedrichsen, program director for the Planet Bee Foundation. She reported that all of the foundation’s lessons consist of an age-appropriate presentation, observation hive for an up-close look at live bees, beekeeping equipment for handling and trying on, honeycomb and wax for students to inspect, and magnified insect boxes or microscopes to check out bees.
The organization is currently slated to visit 86 schools over the next two years. More than 800 students have already participated in the program so far this year. Friedrichsen shared how impressed she was at the interest the students at Harker Preschool took in learning about bees.
She taught the children that a third of every bite they take is made possible by bees and that bees – especially honeybees – are vital pollinators in bringing food to our plates. “But colony collapse disorder and other environmental factors are causing honeybee populations to plummet at an alarming rate; their numbers have declined by the billions since 2006.”
In addition to the Planet Bee visit, the students were delighted to welcome another “bee visit,” this time from Harker Preschool parent and amateur beekeeper Darryl Walker (father of 3-year-old Abby, also in Acorn Cottage).
“He extended our learning by visiting classes with his beekeeping gear (suit, mask and smoker) to talk about how he collects honey from his backyard hive. He also donated a huge jar of his honey to the STEM lab for all the children to taste!” said Stone.
Stone noted that bee study is not just con ned to special visits but is a natural part of the students’ school day, thanks to a native species garden that attracts honeybees (as well as a variety of wild indigenous bees, hummingbirds and local insects).
“By working with the facilities groundskeepers, we’ve eliminated the need for using pesticides to control weeds in our school gardens. We just pull them while we’re outside at play. Being playful and curious go hand-in-hand, making science concepts accessible to young children,” said Stone.
Prior to the preschool’s opening in 2013, Stone and Mike Bassoni, Harker’s facility manager, had discussed pulling out the plants in the garden in front of the STEM lab and replacing them with native perennials. After clearing the garden bed, parent volunteers helped with the planting and the children got in on the action by assisting with sowing seeds.
Last spring, the students observed at least ve different types of wild bees along with myriad butter ies in the garden. “The children walk through the wild owers, they make careful observations, they notice the relationship between ower and animal. And they pretend to be bees, butterflies and hummingbirds,” shared Stone.
In addition to attracting native pollinators and providing food for them, the STEM lab’s native garden uses very little water. And, because it attracts insects, the garden also has become home to native birds that feed on the insects. Stone installed a bird watching station out tted with binoculars so the children are able to observe them.
Stone became so inspired by her work on honeybees with the preschool classes that she recently published an article called “Bee Curious” in the summer 2015 issue of Green Teacher, a journal offering perspectives on the role of education in creating a sustainable future. She and her STEM pupils were also featured in a Harker video called “The Buzz on Bees: A Preschool STEM Lesson on Honeybees.”
Bassoni reported that he became intrigued with assisting Stone in developing the learning garden once he understood her true passion for providing a firsthand outdoor experience to her students. “Her world of bees, pollen, hummingbirds and caterpillars is extremely important. If we can create one small corner of the urban planet that promotes the wellness of our little pollinators, then we have achieved our goal,” he said.
UPDATE: Two students, Evani Radiya-Dixit and David Zhu, both grade 11, have advanced as regional finalists in the Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology! Of the 17 California finalists, 10 are from the Bay Area, while seven are from Southern California. Only two other schools in the state had two finalists. New York State also had 17 finalists, followed by Texas with 11.
The full list of regional finalists can be found here. The Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology is considered the nation’s premier research competition for high school students. A total of 97 regional finalists from throughout the U.S. now advance to one of six regional competitions held over three consecutive weekends in November at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Nov. 6-7); Georgia Institute of Technology (Nov. 6-7); University of Notre Dame (Nov. 13-14); University of Texas at Austin (Nov. 13-14); California Institute of Technology (Nov. 20-21); and Carnegie Mellon University (Nov. 20-21).
Winners of the regional events advance to the National Finals at The George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Dec. 6-8, where $500,000 in scholarships will be awarded, including two top prizes of $100,000.
The competition awards a $1,000 scholarship to each regional finalist, in addition to one $3,000 prize to an individual winner and a $6,000 prize to a team winner at each regional competition.
A complete list of finalists and their projects is available at www.siemens-foundation.org preceding each regional event.
Oct. 16, 2015 The Siemens Foundation announced today that 13 Harker upper school students had been named semifinalists in this year’s Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology. Harker had the most semifinalists of any California school.
This year’s semifinalists are:
Vivek Bharadwaj, Rishabh Chandra, Anthony Luo and Jonathan Ma, grade 12; Rishab Gargeya, Shasvat Jawahar, Alex Mo, Evani Radiya-Dixit, Venkat Sankar, Manan Shah, Arjun Subramaniam and David Zhu, grade 11; and Brandon Mo, grade 10.
A total of 466 semifinalists were chosen from the 1,700 submissions received by Siemens. These students are now eligible to become regional finalists and travel to Washington, D.C., for the finals in December.
Update – Mar. 27, 2015
Today, Andrew was the subject of a news story in ChinaDaily, and earlier this week was featured in a TV news segment on the Chinese language network Sinovision.
Mar. 10, 2015
Harker senior Andrew Jin won a first-place medal of distinction in the Global Good category in this year’s Intel Science Talent Search. He is the first Harker student since 2006 to be named a winner in the competition and is one of three first-place winners in this year’s Intel STS, each of them claiming a prize of $150,000.
Jin, along with seniors Steven Wang and Rohith Kuditipudi, were named finalists in this year’s Intel STS in January, making Harker the only school nationwide with more than two finalists. Harker had 15 Intel semifinalists, the most of any school in the country.