Eastland-Fairfield Career & Technical Schools bioscience students at Gahanna Lincoln's Clark Hall, are heading to the HOSA-Future Health Professionals National Leadership Conference in Dallas after advancing from the HOSA state competition April 10-11.
HOSA, which once stood for Health Occupations Students of America, is a national career and technical student organization endorsed by the U.S. Department of Education and the Health Science Technology Education Division of ACTE (Association for Career and Technical Education).
Of the 37 students who participated in the HOSA state competition at the Greater Columbus Downtown Convention Center and Tolles Career & Technical Center, 17 will advance to national competition and 15 finished in the top 10. The national event is June 27-30.
Bioscience technology instructor Kelly Lewis said she's amazed every year by the tenacity and talent of students in the class.
"While the contests revolve around scientific content, they have had to be creative in their approach and integrate other disciplines such as speech and debate," Lewis said. "They have spent many hours outside of class, prepping and studying, on top of a rigorous high school schedule. I am very proud and humbled to be a part of their growth."
In addition to their contests at nationals, the students will participate in educational symposiums, meet people with similar career goals, hear inspiring speeches by well-known leaders in health care and be recognized for hours of volunteer service this past school year.
Gahanna senior Virag Patel, who won first place in "prepared speaking," said he's excited to advance because he can spread his message about how anyone can change his or her life.
"I did a speech for my project over the topic of Create Your Future," he said. "In this speech, I proposed three steps that can be taken by anybody, no matter who you are, to create your future.
"The three steps were, one, to come up with a few goals, two, stay motivated (it's being changed to to 'be driven' for nationals) and the third step being working hard toward that goal."
In the first step, Patel said, he talks about how he did very little other than play video games in 2016.
"Playing those games got me nowhere, and it was time to change," he said. "In 2017, I continue to talk about how I first came up with a goal, to be flexible, but I wasn't motivated to do it, and that was because it would never help me or benefit me."
Patel said his life changed in 2017 when he saw a video about Greg Plitt, an Army Ranger who went on to be an American fitness model, bodybuilder and actor.
"He motivated me to push myself, and I chose to go into the military because of him," Patel said. "The branch I chose was the Marine Corps, because it was the most challenging branch and pushed me past my limits. Greg Plitt taught me to push myself."
In concluding his speech, Patel reviews the three steps and talks about how failure is a possibility and it shouldn't stop you.
"I give the example of Steve Jobs, and how he was fired from his own company," he said. "He started another company and got back into Apple, leading it to be one of the biggest companies in the world."
Hila Eitam, a Gahanna Lincoln junior, won first place in the "public-service announcement" event, along with teammates Rachel Becker of Gahanna and Cassidy Drabick of Reynoldsburg.
The topic chosen by HOSA for this year's PSA was "Prediabetes: Stopping a Runaway Train."
"We are not only judged on the quality of the video, but on our public use of the PSA, and how we present this information to the public in efforts to educate others about the risks of prediabetes, and the preventative measures that can be taken to stop prediabetes before it becomes something more serious," Eitam said.
To reach the public, the team uploaded the video on YouTube, posted the link to social media and showed the PSA on school announcements. The video is called "HOSA PSA Prediabetes 2018."
"For the district competition, we made our PSA by recording a video of illustrated characters and symbols, which we moved in and out of the screen and paired this video with a voiceover," Eitam said. "We won first place at districts and moved on to states."
Since they advanced to the next level, the students were motivated to further improve their PSA.
"We scanned our drawings on the computer and made the whole video digitally, allowing us to create a clearer image with cleaner transitions," Eitam said.
After advancing to round two at states, 10 teams presented a four-minute speech to explain their creative process, public use of the PSA, and how they hoped the video would change the public's opinions, actions and feelings.
"We found out we had won first place out of all the PSA groups," Eitam said. "Rachel, Casi and I were beyond excited and proud of ourselves to have even moved onto the national competition, let alone win first place.
"I cannot wait to go to Dallas in June to compete again with an even further improved PSA, and I am so excited to spend four days with my teammates and the rest of our classmates who advanced to nationals."
Gahanna senior Madison Morrison said he took first place in a public health competition with his team that included Ian Slaughter of Gahanna, Makida Bekele and Casey McDaniel of Whitehall and Brittany Isbister of Pickerington North.
"The topic this year was teen dating violence awareness," he said. "My team and I went out into the community to spread awareness about teen dating violence."
Morrison said the initiative took the team to many places they didn't expect, even recording a commercial for Columbus television.
"These initiatives paved the path for our first-place medal at HOSA states," he added. "I'm very excited to go to nationals ... this summer and have a great time with everyone else in the program."
Other events with local students advancing are the biomedical debate team of Neha Badam, Katie Blowers, Iman Faqih and Sreekar Miriyala, all of Gahanna; the creative problem-solving team, with Makayla Lerner of Bloom Carroll, and Ariel Lazo and Jared Uhl, both of Reynoldsburg; and in clinical specialty, Jessie Sharp of Gahanna.
Advancing for recognition at nationals for the Barbara James Service Award (for 100-plus hours of service in STEM-related areas since June 1) are Badam, Hanna Ford and Kayla Davis, all of Gahanna; Haylee Ottman of Groveport; and Makida Bekele of Whitehall.
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