Growing up, senior Valeria Sanchez has always gravitated toward science. When she was younger she liked medical science; however, as she began taking more science classes, specifically the Project Lead The Way medical classes, she began to become more interested in forensic science.
After learning more about science, she became interested in starting a club at the high school. She felt even more inclined after noticing that there is a club for almost every other interest such as Math Team, Spanish Honor Society, and even a Creative Writing Club.
“We don’t have a Science Club at the school, which I think is really weird,” Sanchez said. “I really like science and was like ‘I’m gonna try to start a Science Club.’”
Sanchez asked her junior year chemistry teacher, Melanie Lyons, who she got along with really well to be the sponsor of her club.
“It is a little commitment for me [but] she had to do most of the work and I wanted to support her in that,” Lyons said.
In class, Sanchez was always very interested and motivated to understand the material well.
“She would put in the time to make sure she understood and did well on the tests,” said Lyons.
Sanchez’s motivations were not just for her love of science, but also her love of bringing people together.
“She’s just a really big people-person,” senior club member Kruthi Aiyer said. “She is always thinking about helping others, and she just really wants to bring something that’s really involving.”
Sanchez hopes to share her love for science with other students at Huntley High School, so she wants to keep the club more casual and more of a group get-together. She plans to do smaller one-on-one experiments instead of larger ones.
“One [experiment] that I’ve had on my mind for a long time is going out to the ponds in the back of the school and getting pond water samples, and then coming back to the classroom and analyzing them under the microscope,” Sanchez said. “I think that’s really cool, really simple, and fun to do.”
Sanchez hopes to bring both biology and chemistry, as well as acknowledge some big names in science such as Edmund Locard, who established the first forensic crime lab. She also hopes to have members involved and contributing their ideas often. Sanchez’s first meeting is on Nov. 1 where her main goal is to share what she is most interested in with others.
“What really motivated her was just wanting to do something that helps other people learn more about what she’s interested in,” Aiyer said.
