Due to their similar subjects, biology olympiad has merged with biology club at the end of first semester, co-president Soham Nanawati said. Originally proposed by biology club, the two clubs eventually came to a mutual agreement and were able to combine fairly smoothly, Nanawati, a junior, said.
Before the merge, biology club was mainly focused on helping students with school, vice president Kevin Chang said.
“Our main purpose was to help students who are taking AP biology by hosting study sessions,” Chang, a junior, said. “One of our other purposes was to introduce students in biology to fields of study related to that in the future.”
On the other hand, biology olympiad was more focused on the USA Biology Olympiad competition and preparing members to succeed in it, Nanawati said. The merger essentially added a USABO preparation aspect to biology club, Nanawati added.
Despite the two clubs being able to merge quite seamlessly, one issue they faced was with finding and working with an adviser, Nanawati said.
“Our current adviser, Mr. Fung, has been taking on lots of responsibility, running KSA and KREW, science olympiad, science bowl and Footprints, so he would like to start relieving himself of some work,” Nanawati said. “We’ve been discussing with teachers around campus and hope that we can find someone to help who is interested in supporting biology club.”
Another issue that the club faces is advertising itself and increasing membership, club treasurer Larry Li said.
“Getting our information out [is an issue],” Li, a senior, said. “Recently, they stopped allowing clubs to be on the morning announcements, so we’re trying to find new ways to promote the club.”
In the future, the combined club hopes to host more interactive activities such as labs, as they have been doing a lot of lectures and teaching general topics, Li said.
“We’re trying to do more hands-on things like we’re making a terrarium this semester,” Li said. “We’re also maybe gonna do a blood test lab and get more hands-on things to more people involved.”
