Upper School Physics Club Connects Through New Website

Amid a global pandemic, many clubs in Darlington have been unable to continue their in-person meetings and activities and some of my favorite academic teams and clubs aren't currently active. As I was searching for a solution, I reached out to Mrs. Barbara Kuckhoff, my physics teacher, for some ideas. After a few online discussion periods, she suggested  creating "a virtual club" which inspired me to come up with the idea of creating a Physics Club website. I believe this could be a useful platform to share information between club members on different continents.

Despite having no previous experience with programming languages such as HTML and JavaScript, I found that creating a website was not as difficult as I had imagined. It was rather a fun and playful journey to integrate my own knowledge, creativity, and some other outside resources together during the process. Besides, with the help of intuitive and powerful webpage design tools like Google Sites, I have exceeded my original expectation of only creating a website to share the same information among club members: it is a place to discuss, to share thoughts, to post blogs, to find resources, to conduct activities, to schedule online meetings, and to learn more physics. It is more exciting as the list of features and functions keeps growing as we have more ideas.

Though my original purpose is to offer a useful website for physics learners and physics enthusiasts in Darlington Community to visit, a significant part of my goal now is to make the website accessible to more people in public, including parents, prospective students, and alumni that are interested in student life or the academic area of Darlington. I think providing them with the opportunity to view and interact with students' work is more natural and intuitive to know what Darlington students think and what we are capable of, especially in the area of physics. Also, I think it is a good influence and inspiration for other clubs and teams in Darlington. I can imagine many clubs that could benefit from the opportunity to create their own website, and I would love to offer my assistance. If that includes you, please contact me at mwu@darlingtonschool.org.

I feel very fortunate to have many teachers who supported and contributed to this project, including Mrs. Barbara Kuckhoff, Mr. Stefan Eady, Mrs. Beth Wardlaw, and many more. I am genuinely grateful for their constructive suggestions and involvement.

Click here to visit the Physics Virtual Club website. Click here to visit our Instagram page.