Sruthi Sudarsan, a 17-year-old senior at Quarry Lane School in Dublin, recently received a Youth in Action award for civic engagement from the National 4-H Council at the youth organization’s
Competing at the junior varsity level, Romal Mitr, a sophomore at The Quarry Lane School in Dublin, finished third in two IAC National Championship examinations â the National Biology Exam and the National Ecology and Environmental Science Exam.
International Academic Competitions USA sponsors 11 national exam competitions encompassing the sciences and history for elementary, middle school, and high school students. The 2020 examinations were conducted in December.
The National Ecology and Environmental Science Exam covered topics ranging from ecosystems, conservation biology, climate change, food webs, biogeochemistry, environmental degradation, biogeography, and human ecology.
The National Biology Exam covered all aspects of a standard high school biology curriculum, including molecular and cellular biology, ecology, anatomy, taxonomy, evolution, and genetics.
Five seniors at the private Quarry Lane School in Dublin â Prisha Bhadra, Geetika Gopidas, Minju Lee, Kanchan Naik, and Saahil Sachdeva â have been named National Merit Scholarship finalists for 2021.
About 15,000 finalists nationwide are eligible for about 7,500 scholarships worth about $30 million offered by the nonprofit National Merit Scholarship Corporation and its business and academic partners. Scholarship winners will be announced this spring.
Finalists represent about 1% of the more than 1.5 million juniors who entered the competition by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. After qualifying as a semifinalist, based on their test scores, students must also perform well on the Scholastic Aptitude Test, submit an essay, and be recommended by someone at their high school.
Sudharsan Gopalakrishnan, a sophomore at The Quarry Lane School in Dublin, has received a Golden Clover Award from the University of California 4-H Youth Development Program for an online coding project for 4-H members during the pandemic.
The Golden Clover Award recognizes outstanding achievements within the 4-H Youth Development Program that involve youth-adult partnerships in planning and delivery, reach a wide array of youth, and strive to meet local needs.
When in-person education was cancelled because of COVID-19, Gopalakrishnan, a Teen Project Leader for the Tassajara 4-H Club in Contra Costa County, devoted much of his free time to promoting STEM workshops and virtual coding classes for 4-H youth members. He helped members and adult volunteers with everything from creating a curriculum based on age, interest, and proficiency levels to setting up classes, managing signups, and hosting classes as an educator.