The 2024-2025 year at River Dell High School has welcomed many new clubs! Amongst these is the Science Club. The Science Club is a new club where students can participate in fun labs and physics and chemistry related activities.
Co-founders Isabel Lee, Shreeja Sinha, Jeffrey Jeong, and Aaron Okrainsky are all seniors and had the idea for the club last year during their AP Chemistry class. They were inspired by labs done in the class and others they weren’t able to do. The club is a way for them to do labs that sometimes can’t be done in class due to a fast-paced curriculum.
Another reason the club was set up is because the Honors Organic Chemistry class wasn’t running this year. Therefore, many students were not able to further explore their chemistry interests. This is why Isabel Lee, one of the founders, explained that, “We opened the club this year in hopes of offering another way to learn more about chemistry and science in general.”
Dr. McNamara and Mr. Pohling are the two club advisors. Dr. McNamara will be in charge of the chemistry part of the club while Mr. Pohling will take over the physics side. In an interview, Dr. McNamara has stated that “We’re going to be focused more on the hands on activities but that will of course, always include a little of research the understand the principles and the concepts behind the activity in order to apply it.”
Although the Biology Club has already been running for two years ago, the Science Club is different from it since it covers two different sciences. The Science Club is a combination of both physics and chemistry. Lauren Morgner, a sophomore, seems to be glad a separate Science Club was established, “I think it’s a bit weird that River Dell has a biology club but not a physics and chemistry club, I’m glad they made one.”
Shreeja Sinha, another one of the founders, says that one of the activities she is most excited about is “a lab done last December in AP Chemistry in which ornaments were made out of chemicals and changing colors, it was very cool.” This is just one of the many labs the club plans on doing throughout the school year. The club will use many other labs using The American Chemistry society, an online chemistry resource, which will provide ideas and supplies.
The club was seen at the club fair amongst the other many clubs of River Dell. Many students have been encouraged to join and so far the club has already had 75 members sign up.
Although some students are hesitant to join the club such as Selin Eker, a sophomore, “I really like science but I’m not sure if I want to come to a club that only focuses on calculations and more problems.” Shreeja combated this, explaining that the club is “not all about calculations, and getting good grades, because there’s also many interesting topics and labs that we’d like to get students interested in.”
