Through scheduled meetings with Korean students overseas, two Souderton students represented the United States in the U.S. Korea Global Cooperation Research and Education Program by presenting an idea to advance a vertical wind turbine to generate electricity in cities.
Seniors Navya Vysysaraju and Kelvin Zhang stepped up to represent the high school last May.
“We joined this global program where there were a couple of different categories of research projects we could do,” Zhang said.
The work of these two seniors was part of a collaboration between U.S. and South Korean schools.
“We were split up between different groups based on what our interests were in,” Zhang said.
According to science teacher Karen Wolfe, the program also features groups of students from three other American schools.
“One was Norristown, which shocked me because [they’re] right in our backyard,” Wolfe said. “The other two were in Connecticut.”
The program featured larger groups of students from Korean schools.
“Other high schools took on a workload that made sense for how many people they had. They had a lot more trials,” Vysyaraju said. “Kelvin and I chose a project with a lot more research and design as opposed to testing.”
South Korea has a time zone 14 hours ahead of the United States.
According to Zhang, this added a lot of complexity to the program as groups would have to work around the time zone difference by meeting over Zoom.
“They really took initiative,” Wolfe said. “[They met] three or four times from May to December. We [met] online at 7 a.m because 7 a.m. here was 7 p.m. there.”
The program provided a glimpse into the cultural differences between the U.S. and Korea.
“Unlike the U.S., [Korea] has more specialized high schools,” Vysysaraju said. “[The students were] from science high schools.”
Wolfe has experience with international science fairs that featured 77 different countries.
“They not only did hard science, but they were able to talk about it in English,” Wolfe said.
According to Vysysaraju, communication was a “struggle,” especially due to the fact that “maybe one member” from each Korean group could speak English.
Throughout their time in the program. the students did not discuss much beyond science.
Vysyaraju said that the canceled symposium was to blame.
“That’s what the [symposium] was intended for,” Vysysaraju said. “They would have invited us to some locations [and cities] that are focused on culture.”
Wolfe compiled the co-op with different research opportunities open to interested students last year, and Zhang and Vysyaraju took her up on it.
Early morning calls were not all it took to see the program through.
“I think initiative, working independently and time management were really important,” Wolfe said.
Science is a major part of both Zhang and Vysyaraju’s lives.
For Zhang, it is his present work with the upcoming science fair that is keeping him focused on science.
“I’m working on a solar concentrator concept for energy capturing on Mars,” Zhang said.
For Vysyaraju, her future plans as a mechanical engineer motivate her to continue working with the sciences.
“I’m interested in Duke University, so I applied there. It’s a long shot, but who knows,” Vysyaraju said.
The program was about more than research. Education was an important part of it.
According to Vysyaraju, this opportunity showed how interconnected we are.
“We’re not that different really. Kids are kids, and kids are doing science [similarly] in other places of the world,” Wolfe said.