For the past two months, The Observer has been delving deep into the world of the 95 official clubs at CHS. Many of those clubs work in the shadows of more well-known ones, so we’ve decided to highlight a few more that deserve recognition.

Girls Who Code

Girls Who Code (GWC) is new to CHS. The club, founded Sept. 2016 by junior Alexandra Tanner and senior Amal Moosa, has been busy all year.

GWC is a national organization that encourages girls to pursue computer science and engineering by teaching them how to code and work with computer programs.

“My club has taught many girls how to write their own code in both Java and Python and has given girls an idea about what they can do with this knowledge in the future,” Tanner said.

Java and Python are both programming languages that can be used to create a variety of computer programs.

To help the girls create their year-long project, sponsor and technology teacher Rebecca Smith has introduced over 50 members of the club to different programming languages to work on a problem-solving program. She also hopes to incorporate TED talks and live speakers into club events.

“By the end of the year, the students should use a programming language to create a program to solve a problem,” Smith said.

It’s Academic

It’s Academic might mainly be known for the televised tournaments that they participate in, but the club does much more than that: they have an abundance of members who play in many other  tournaments outside of the televised ones.

Members practice twice each week after school with Neil Hazard, club sponsor and parent of a former CHS player. During competitions, the club members break into teams of four and answer a variety of questions ranging from science to fine arts to history.

“It’s probably one of the most straightforward games you can play,” junior A-team captain Jiawei Bai said. “My favorite part is meeting people who are really smart, dedicated, and interested in learning.”

The TV portion of the club only takes up a small amount of their time. Alternatively, most of their time is filled by practices and Montgomery Academic Beltway League matches against other local schools, both public and private. They will also compete in the High School National Championship Tournament in Atlanta, Ga.

“This will be our first year competing in a national tournament so we just hope for the best,” sophomore Melanie Heller said.

Music Tutoring Club

Music Tutoring Club has been helping CHS students learn and practice their musical instruments for almost five years.

CHS alumnae Samantha Locraft and Cathy Wang founded the club in 2013. Current senior and president Hannah Locraft, Samantha’s sister, joined when she was a freshman, tutoring while also learning from her peers.

“I joined because I really liked the concept of the club,” Locraft said. “I wanted to be able to teach people saxophone if they wanted to learn it and I wanted to learn new instruments from other students as well.”

Music Tutoring Club is open at lunch to any student who wants to tutor other students or is interested in learning how to play a musical instrument without the stress of taking an actual class.

“The accomplishments of a club like this one are hard to quantify but we have inspired several students to try out new instruments,” Locraft said. “I hope to get even more tutors than we have now.”Less