After school, a group of students climb into a friend’s car, racing to get to their next destination. However, this group isn’t rushing to get to sports practice or to go home; instead, they drive to Blanchard Middle School. There, career opportunities are explored, fun experiments are conducted, and strong connections are formed.
The Health Occupations Students of America (HOSA) Middle School Committee is a group of six high school HOSA members who travel to Blanchard twice a month after school to run the middle school’s HOSA chapter. Comprised of three seniors, two juniors, and one sophomore, the committee focuses on making health and science topics accessible and engaging, as they aim to spark curiosity and build a stronger early interest in the medical field.
“We do fun, hands-on activities,” Middle School Committee Coordinator and senior Catherine Zhu said. “Like drawing human body posters, [extracting] DNA from strawberries, or building DNA models out of Twizzlers, that kind of stuff. [We do] little fun science experiments as well.”
Even though the high school club and middle school club are both chapters of the same national student organization, their activities and goals are slightly different. Westford Academy’s HOSA club is geared towards helping students interested in the medical field achieve their goals through state and international competitions as well as presentations on how to gain experience in the medical field. Blanchard’s HOSA chapter is open to any student interested in the medical field or science in general, and focuses more on learning about the human body and physiology.
“Even if [the Blanchard club members] aren’t interested in the medical field, they’re welcome to come. We leave it open for people to just come try it out because [middle schoolers] are kind of young to know what they want to do [in the future],” Zhu said. “I think I relate to that on a personal level, because I’m actively involved in speech and debate, even though I have no intention of going into anything in that field, but I love it, and that’s why I do it, and I think that’s what matters.”
Some other activities that the middle schoolers have participated in include learning how to splint a forearm, trying out Westford Academy’s “drunk goggles” to learn more about how alcohol affects the brain, making models of lungs to learn about lung anatomy, playing medical jeopardy, and making models of the digestive system using balloons.
Many of the club activities are extremely interactive and educational, so a lot of hard work and dedication goes into the planning process for a club meeting. As the coordinator of the committee, Zhu comes up with the majority of the activities, but the other members pitch in and generate some of their own ideas as well. They have a document with ideas for club meetings, and the members coordinate before each meeting to figure out who will run the meeting and what activities they will do.
“To come up with the activities, honestly, it’s a lot of brainstorming,” Zhu said. “There’s also a lot of looking online, [and] finding fun, medical-related science activities.”
Looking into the future of the HOSA Middle School Committee, the leadership will be changing as Zhu graduates this year and steps down from her position as the committee’s coordinator. Junior Lauren Soucie will take her place, and she is looking forward to meeting new club members and welcoming back returning ones.
“I’m excited about the new people joining the club. I think that they’ll bring new experiences, and I’m hoping that we can get more people so we’ll have more hands-on experiences,” Soucie said. “I’m [also] excited to maybe get the [middle school committee’s club started at] Stony Brook [Middle School]. That’s a possibility for something that I’m going to try to do, so we’re really hoping that that’s a go.”
With similar excitement, the sixth and seventh graders look forward to another year of new and engaging activities.
“I am participating in the HOSA club next year because the activities we do help me understand the topics [a lot] better,” seventh grader Saaral Senthilkumar said. “I am always excited to attend the meetings because I am always interested in seeing what the activities will be and to learn.”
