DECEMBER 2001 (VOL. 8, NO. 3)
Harker Now in Space! See article on this page under Harker Headlines…
N E W S L E T T E R
F R O M
student ■ The Blood Drive on the Saratoga campus in November was a wonder ful success. Students, faculty, staff and parents demonstrated their commitment—and their courage—as they filed in all day long to donate blood. A special thanks to US student Shalini Lal who arranged for the Stanford Blood Bank to come to our campus and to all the US students who assisted throughout the day. Also, special thanks to Debra Nott, Harker’s Head Nurse, for managing the schedule. Congratulations and thanks to all of you who braved the needle, especially you first timers. Your gift means ever ything to someone in need. Ever yone helped make it a huge success—a total of 68 pints of blood!
■ The Bucknall campus held a contest to design a t-shirt that would then be sold as a fundraiser to raise money for the Relief Fund. The winning designs were created by 6th grader Tonia Sun and 3rd grader Brianna Tran. Congratulations to both of these talented students! Tonia’s design includes an American Eagle holding a flag, a peace dove holding an olive branch, and a Harker eagle holding ribbons that say, “Harker Cares.”
T H E
H A R K E R
S C H O O L
outreach wonderful, and the t-shir ts are currently in production. Design by Brianna Tran
M O N T H L Y
Design by Tonia Sun
A
SARATOGA CAMPUS
Brianna’s design says “Harker School Cares” and features three children holding hands on one side of the ocean and three children holding hands on the other side of the ocean. Both designs are
hArker ■ A microgravity experiment developed by a core group of 13 US students under the direction of Physics instructor Philip Becker was blasted into space on November 19 along with 29 other student experiments from around the world as part of NASA’s five year old SEM (Space Experiment Module) educational program. Students designed and constructed the SEM unit which will test the effects of microgravity on the restorative proper ties of springs and other mechanical devices composed of the shape-memory alloy Nitinol. The Space Shuttle bearing Harker’s experiment is scheduled to return to Ear th on Dec. 10, 2001, and Becker expects to receive the module back from NASA this spring. The materials will then be analyzed and evaluated by students on the Harker SEM team. Watch future issues for more details about this incredible project! ■ In recent announcements of student achievements, Alex Combs,
■ Jennifer Gargano, US Math teacher and Community Service advisor, announced that the US students and staff have adopted 38 homeless families in this year’s “Adopt A Family” program, sponsored by the Emergency Housing Consortium of San Jose. The Harker student and staff groups participating have each adopted one of these families and continued on pg. 4
headlines Gr. 12, was named a scholar in the National Hispanic Recognition Program sponsored by the College Board. The program recognizes about 4,000 of the Hispanic students who scored highest on the PSAT in their junior year. ■ Alexa Bush, Gr. 12, was named a semi-finalist in the National Achievement Scholarship Program and can go on to compete for the scholarship award. Ashley Alston and Rahwa Iman were commended for their outstanding performance in the competition. This scholarship program is an academic competition for black high school students and these Harker students are among California’s highest-scoring black students on the 2000 PSAT. Congratulations to all these outstanding seniors! ■ Congratulations to Harker faculty Giresh Ghooray, Jacob Hazard and Pat Walsh who successfully completed an eightweek Summer Fellowship with Lockheed Mar tin Missiles & Space, Intel Corporation and Micro Metallics, respectively.