WHO WE ARE

Focused on Understanding

Our team was formed last year after the success of our project with Dead Zones in our project Mission SASS. Our interests and our desire to do this experiment played an effective role when it came to the project. All of the members live relatively close to each other (5-10 minutes apart) and we all are avid participants of the local Science Bowl and Science Fair Club. We all are in the same classes, the same clubs, and the same after school/before school activities. We decided to work with each other since we are relatively close and have similar interests. Sahana and Sharvaa speak the same language, while Sanjana and Atiksh speak different languages from the same country of India. We all take a high school credit class, biology, and that is where our ideas developed.  After seeing and taking in the concerns and benefits of working together, we decided to work with each other. Each member had significant importance both academically as well as socially. In all, we wanted to use each member’s significance to the greatest, hence resulting in us managing our experiment together. We also had a basis of thinking of how the experiment was going to go; consequently, we wanted to use these ideas to benefit our community. Each member had unique responsibilities and skills that contributed greatly to our performance. Each team member had numerous academic and social abilities which played an extensive role in our team formation:

Our first team member, Sharvaa Selvan, had some critical expertise needed for our project. He is part of the Mathcounts math team and has been to many math competitions, winning almost every. He was also a fellow member of the Science Bowl team, meaning that he had the ability to help us accurately gather and analyze our data and made sure that we had the correct information for our research. He was very helpful during our mineral testing. He also took part in The First Lego League along with another member, Sanjana, in the team and won an award.

Atiksh Chandra, a team member, had some vital skills for our project. His active participation in Speech competition and his outspoken personality helped us when communicating with experts and presentations. Atiksh helped us give constructive responses to our project and gave us some vital information that was needed for our project. He helped analyze information and took proper care of our nutrient agar plates and its bacterial growth during testing. He also contributed to taking note of the dates/times of our meetings.

Let’s not forget our next member, Sahana. Sahana had expertise in science and math. She’s been to many math competitions and has performed very well in each. She also is a 4.67 GPA honor student and is very good at speaking. She was very good at taking note of chemical measurements and calculating the amount of concentration and took part in our 1:10 dilutions. Her knowledge of microbiological science gave us the base of our project. She also is a member of the Science Bowl team, and an award-winning science student. Sahana has gardening experience, as well as critical thinking skills. It was an honor having Sahana on our team.

Finally, we have Sanjana. Sanjana is a 4.67 GPA honor student. She proofreads each team members’ responses. Sanjana planned each meeting and took note of each meeting time/date in Google Sheets. She also kept a budget of each item we bought and divided the cost evenly for each material/item. She notified each member within 4 days of the next meeting. She also was 5th-grade vice president so she had skills in communicating with people and was very outspoken. She also took pictures of our project. She took part in First Lego League with another member, Sharvaa, in Florida and won an award for their school.

Each team member encouraged each other by complimenting each other after every meeting. During meetings, when things got out of hand, one of us kept us focused. Even when one of us made a mistake, our team was always there to keep of going. Sharvaa is always great at thoroughly explaining problems we tend to have. If there is a mistake the number one person we go to is Sharvaa. Sometimes, before we begin a meeting one of us has had a rough day or seems to be tired. When this occurs, Sanjana is always there to brighten the day. She makes sure that all of us are in a good mood to begin working. Sahana is the most reliable team member we pertain. If we need her, she is always there and willing to spend time on our project. Because of her commitment to this project, the whole team feels as if they should come to all the meetings as well. Finally, Atiksh is a team member that we need. He’s usually the one that gave our team our spirit. He always tells the team that we are doing something for a cause that we believe is important. He always encourages us to work harder to get our goal of making a difference in the biomedical science community.