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A group of 127 AP Psychology students visited the Exploratorium in San Francisco on Jan. 7 to get a hands-on look at what they had learned in class. “The Exploratorium has a ton of exhibits that complement and supplement the AP Psych curriculum, including sensation and perception, motivation and emotion, memory, neurobiology and more,” said Naomi Schatz, AP Psychology teacher. “We were hoping to give
the students an opportunity to see first-hand many of the things we’ve read about and discussed in class.” “One of the more difficult units in AP Psychology focuses on our sense organs and how they can be deceived,” said Nicole VanderSal, AP Psychology and biology teacher. “We covered this unit in November, so this trip helped to reinforce some of these concepts.” Students visited the Ames room, which features perception exhibits, and experienced auditory illusions, “where you couldn’t tell what was being said until you clicked a button that wrote the word, and then it was suddenly so obvious,” VanderSal said. The teachers heard many positive remarks during the trip, indicating the students had a fun time brushing up on the concepts they had studied. “I only heard positive things about how ‘cool’ things were, how much fun they had, how ‘neat’ it was to see some of the things we’ve read about in the books up close and personal,” said Schatz. VanderSal also heard many students express their enjoyment of their experience at the Exploratorium: “Based on the many laughs and smiles that I saw and hearing students explain things to each other, it was a great success!”
Quiz Bowl Kids March On to Semis For the eighth straight year, Harker’s quiz bowl team is in the semifinals of Quiz Kids. In back-to-back matches one weekend in early January, the team of Anand Natarajan, Vikram Nathan and Alex Hu, all Gr. 12, finished Saturday seeded third; then on Sunday, in a victory over Bentley, “we avenged last year’s loss to the same team in the quarterfinals,” said advisor and math teacher Bradley Stoll. “Nothing like a little sweet revenge. This is quite an accomplishment, as we’ve won with many different players and teams.” Stoll hopes to keep the same team for the next match, to be held in late February or early March. Supporters are welcome, so watch for the announcement!
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Kerry Enzensperger
Naomi Schatz - all photos
Field Trip Reinforces Psych Concepts Key Club Bowls for Dollars In December, members of the Harker Key Club, as well as Key Club members from other high schools in the area, attended a Bowl-a-Thon to raise money for students who need help paying for college. According to Harker Key Club president Richard Ly, Gr. 12, about 30 members of the Harker chapter hit the lanes and raised more than $1,000 for the cause. The Key Club is a community service organization made up of chapters located all over the world. In the coming semester, the Key Club will hold Harker’s first outdoor dance on Davis Field, and plans to raise money to help pay for eye surgeries in India or Vietnam. During the summer, the Key Club worked with the Red Cross to collect and donate clothes to earthquake victims in China, and during the fall semester raised money to donate to UNICEF, which was used for AIDS relief in rural Africa.
Multimedia Room Ready to Roll The multimedia room in Nichols Hall has recently been made available for audio and video recording projects for both students and teachers. The room now contains high-quality video cameras, a teleprompter, an 88-key synthesizer, speakers, a ProTools audio recording system and multiple backdrops in addition to the green screen. These features make it an ideal place to record projects such as news broadcasts, panel discussions, and vocal and dance performances. Fred Triefenbach, assistant director of instructional technology, who maintains the facility, encourages students and faculty to contact him to schedule time. We’ll report more as the room goes into use!
Junior Mentoring Program Wows Each year all juniors are paired with a mentor, a professional, in order to orient them to the workplace and to the nuts and bolts of individual professions. Held in early January, the program was formally started with a breakfast in the Bistro, but some students were already on the job. Groups of students accompanied mentors to their jobs and discussed aspects of working in the profession. “I’ve enjoyed being a mentor at Harker for the last two years,” said Karla Callahan, founder, president and CEO of Vizyontech Imaging, Inc. “I am very enthusiastic about the fun, messy, rewarding process of mentoring. It is a great process of giving some ideas, information and tools, answering questions and planting some seeds.” Stefan Schwartz spent time with mentor Rodney Rapson (Taylor, Gr. 12, Colby, Gr. 11), an architect, and parent Kathy Goller said, “Stefan was so energized by the experience that he couldn’t stop talking about it. He really enjoyed talking with Rodney and got a lot of good information. He is very excited about the prospect of going into the field of architecture as a career.” Shanthi Rajagopalan spent time with mentor Officer Reid Biersdorf of the San Jose Police Department and said, “He was definitely a great mentor. In fact, before I was just considering law enforcement but now I think that is really what I want to do. I learned a lot about what I now need to do.” Harker News — January 09