The Science National Honor Society (SNHS) is a club for those looking to express their knowledge and creativity in the field of science. While many people may wish to work as rappers, singers, actors or television personalities, the goal of SNHS is to stress how important science is to society and to encourage more knowledge and appreciation of it. This “society” will give Malden High School a chance to not only share their knowledge with each other, but relay it to others outside of school.
The SNHS was created during the summer of 2017 by junior Taylor Dill. Dill first developed a passion for science when her brother became a nurse. She began to read his textbooks and her interest flourished from there. Dill later decided to create the SNHS by asking her friend and fellow junior Novia Li, who responded with “Yeah, why not?”. So the two began making flyers, getting advisors and gaining members. Even though the SNHS was created in the summer, the process started about a month before. It was a long process that involved getting permission from teachers and paying a $100 fee out of their own pockets.
The SNHS consists of five officers who are all juniors, two advisers and any other members who sign up. The officers are Dill (President/ Co-founder), Novia Li (Vice President/ Co-founder), Felix Li (Historian), Nicole Chen (Secretary) and Queenie Dang (Treasurer). Besides the President and Vice President, the officers were chosen due to the fact they all share suitable traits useful for the club. The officers are organized, reliable, determined, trustworthy, hard working and take their work seriously. And finally, the clubs advisers consists of Chemistry teacher Gregory Simone and freshmen guidance counselor Taryn Belowsky.
As part of the process of gaining new members, announcements are said over the loudspeaker for everyone in the school to hear. Belowsky then goes over the list of who signs up to see whether or not they fill the requirements. Requirements include having at least a GPA of 3.6 and an 85 average in all science classes. If you are a couple of points off of the required GPA, you are still eligible to join. It helps as well if you take any Bunker Hill science classes. Once entered, members must answer a prompt to indicate where they help in the clubs activities.
The SNHS does not have a certain day for the meetings yet but do plan to do events over the weekend and meet once a week. As part of the SNHS activities, they will be holding several volunteer events around Malden such as “Science on the Street” sponsored by Biogen. Biogen is a company that helps in making medicines for curing diseases such as multiple sclerosis and more. The club did this a couple weeks ago and made bottle rockets and kites for five hours. Dill explains that “seeing the kids faces lit…lit us up.”
Other plans for the SNHS include community service projects like gardening and recycling. The cafeterias in the school do not have recycling bins so the club plans to make that addition for helping the environment and raise awareness for global warming. And for diseases and disasters, they plan to raise money for cancer, Hurricane Harvey, and other hurricanes that have occurred.
Besides the fact participating in the club would look good on your resume, the club wants people to join for their enjoyment and best interest in mind. Once it starts, the club will have an informational meeting about their plans for the future. “Our advisers are really good, really nice.” added Dill. As one of the advisers, Mr.Simone said “Yeah, I’m into it” and “it puts something into the school that’ll last for hopefully ever.”
Many students at Malden High take AP science classes. With the help from these students, the club believes this could enrich the sense of science awareness and bring a better understanding of it across the school. For it is only students that could make what the future holds.
