One of the many involvement opportunities here at HHS is the science club. They meet twice a month in the study hall at 7:30 a.m. before school. During these meetings, the students and their teacher, Mrs. Mau, discuss and vote for different activities to do and decide when to go. At the beginning of the year, a lot of students signed up but not all of them showed up at the meetings. Now the science club has 30 active members.
One of these, junior Breanna Gilmore, explains her duties as vice president.
“I help the president Angela Vu to find volunteer activities, and contact coordinators of places where we are going,” Gilmore said.
During meetings, they also hand out permission slips to participate.
“I accepted this role because they needed someone to do it, otherwise the club could not keep going” she said“I like science, and I like learning new things, and this club is a great opportunity to help my community.”
In fact, most of the science club activities are volunteering around the town; for example, the club helps with tree mulching or crossroads.
Junior Jasmine Rodriguez is also keen on sciences and would like to have a career in medicine.
“I’m taking human anatomy and physiology with Mrs. Mau because I want to become an occupational therapist,” Rodriguez said.
This club for Jasmine is a new involvement opportunity since she has never been in a club. So far she is having a great time. Rodriguez talks about the field trip to the pumpkin patch.
“It was very funny: we went in the corn maze, we fed the animals, and had ice cream. We also went in the field and saw all the different kinds of pumpkins and learnt a lot about how they grow them. The next activity I signed up for is glass blowing, which I’ve never done. I’m pretty excited!” Rodriguez said.
When I ask her if she is planning to join the club next year she replied, “Of course I am. This is a great chance to meet new people, visit some cool places and learn about different science fields,” Rodriguez said.
Showing different applications of science is one of the goals of the science club according to Mrs. Mau. She has been in charge of the science club since she started to teach at HHS 16 years ago.
“Mr. Fielder used to be in charge of that, but then he got busy with Student counselor and asked me to replace him” she said.
I ask her about different activities that she is planning for the science club this year “I always look for different ways for the students to help the community, and at the same time collect volunteer hours required for scholarships. I also try to show the students that science is important in many different aspects of our daily life, not only in medicine. Another goal looks at the future: we will participate at the ground water festival where high school students will work with elementary kids. They will have the chance to show the younger students how much water is important for our survival”. However there is a thing she would like to change, in order to get more kids involved “there are many students that cannot join our meetings because they are already involved in other activities that take place in the mornings before school” she points out, “I wish there was a time in the schedule, like once a week, to allow students to participate at extra curricular activities.”
In this way many students would be more involved and, who knows, maybe one day the schedule will change!
