(Source: Jim Levesque)

DECA

From March 12 to 14, students represented Boston Latin School at the Distributive Education Clubs of America’s (DECA) State Career Development Conference (SCDC) at the Thomas M. Menino Convention Center, with many receiving awards and moving on to the international competition.
DECA is an organization dedicated to teaching high school students business and entrepreneurship skills through local, state-wide and international competitions. At these competitions, there are various events centered around topics including hospitality and tourism, entrepreneurship, marketing and finance. Scores are determined based on a combination of role-plays, tests and presentations, which varies depending on which category a student is competing in. Members can compete individually and in groups of two or three.
On the first day of the competition, most students took a 100-question test individually. The next day, students participated in two rounds of presentations or role-plays. During a role-play, students have 10 to 30 minutes to evaluate a business scenario and then 10 to 15 minutes to present to judges.
On the last day of the competition, finalists competed in front of two judges, instead of one judge like in the previous rounds. Tyler Osborne (I), a DECA participant competing in a finance category, notes, “[On] the last day, I had two judges, and that was really tough because I had to keep two people engaged instead of one, but I ended up getting through, which is cool.”
Throughout the three-day event, students also had the opportunity to socialize, network and have fun outside of the competitive aspects, such as taking part in the DECA After Dark event. Beginning at 10:00 P.M., DECA After Dark featured music, entertainment, games and an opportunity for students to meet people from other schools across Massachusetts. During SCDC, chosen voting delegates also voted for next year’s state officers.
Students worked hard to prepare for these tests. Doing practice exams and reviewing past presentations were the most common ways that students studied. Many also collaborated with peers and reviewed individually before the competition and in between rounds.
During the preparation stage, competitors faced challenges. Cristina Lopez Tran (II), another DECA participant, explains, “I definitely struggled with memorization, […] but I was able to overcome it by working with my teammate and also just pushing through.”
Due to the high number of participants, which totaled to around four thousand, BLS members felt that the experience was both nerve-wracking and exciting.
This year, seven BLS students qualified for the International Career Development Conference. Tyler Osborne (I), Sophia Fortuin (II), Benson Wong (II), Sam Parsi (II), Cristina Lopez Tran (II), Victoria Liu (II), Anneliese Yu (III) and Nang Dang (III) will have the opportunity to compete for honors and awards in Atlanta later this month. Lopez Tran expresses her feelings after getting notified about her qualification, stating, “It felt shocking at first. We were kind of expecting it, but it was still such a relief that we had made it to nationals.”

(Source: Olivia Chen (II))

Science Fair

On March 7, Boston Latin School students participated in the Boston Citywide Science Fair, where many dedicated students qualified for the state science fair.
Starting at 8:00 A.M., middle and high school students prepared their posterboards, filled out the necessary paperwork and checked in. They also received shirts and trinkets for attending the fair. Judging then started a little later and lasted until 12:00 P.M.
Each student got six to eight judges and around 15 minutes per judge. They presented their project for ten minutes and answered questions from the judges for the remaining five minutes.
After judging was finished, students got lunch and were able to meet up with science mentors who shared their experiences within the field and answered questions from participants. There was a separate time for younger students in elementary school to share their projects with members of the science fair community. Finally, students returned to their projects and presented them to the public.
The awards ceremony was held virtually via Zoom on the following Tuesday, where students congratulated themselves and peers for grand prizes as well as special awards. Some of the special awards included the Tenacity Award awarded to Jack Fink (IV), the U.S. Airforce Award awarded to Sapna Malhotra (IV) and the Data Analysis Award awarded to Brian Xu (III).
Many students from various schools come to the regional science fair to showcase their hard work and research that was done over the past few weeks. Judges graded students based on the clarity and thoroughness of their presentations.
Students choose to join the science fair for several reasons. Being able to delve into a project of interest appeals to Aditya Tangella (III), first place winner and state fair qualifier, who states, “I’ve always been passionate about science, and science fair was a great opportunity to go past the curriculum and really do research in subjects I am particularly interested in.”
Tangella’s project is on batteries in solar energy systems. He was initially drawn to this topic due to his interest in climate change and its mitigation. His project solves the issue of the current lack of ability to predict the lifetimes of lithium-ion batteries in solar energy systems.
Students faced challenges and setbacks during their research periods. Tangella notes, “The most challenging part of preparing was learning the specific details of how solar energy and batteries work in conjunction and understanding that conceptually before moving on to actual analysis.”
In order to overcome these challenges, Tangella read relevant research papers that he collected prior to his data collections. This helped him take a closer look at his problems and understand them before continuing onto the next part.
The Massachusetts Science and Engineering Fair was held on April 9 at the DCU Center in Worcester.