Danni Simpson
(Member of STEM since 2021)
About Me
Hi! My name is Danielle "Danni" Simpson, I am in the class of 2024 Sprayberry High School STEM Academy. I'm a part of the Healthcare Sciences pathway, which aligns with my goal of becoming a doctor. I participate in many extracurricular activities, such as Sprayberry's Varsity Fastpitch and Wrestling Team! When I'm not at practice I can be found hanging out with my friends or at Transfiguration, my second home. In my limited free time I love swimming, going on runs, drawing, and making jewelry.
Future Plans
My goal for my future is to become a flight surgeon for the U.S Navy, which would involve me earning my bachelors degree in Biology and later attending medical school. I am committed to play Division 1 softball at LeMoyne College where I’ll major in Biology with a double minor in Psychology and Sociology. For post-graduate, I intend to attend medical school through the Military Health Professions Scholarship Program.
Sophmore Year
Sophomore year was my first year in the Sprayberry STEM Academy. I faced some challenges, moving from on level math classes to honors, and no longer having "easy" class periods to do homework for other classes in. Honors Algebra II was a struggle, not only because of the content, but the pace we moved at in comparison to on-level Geometry. Additionally, I joined the wrestling team this year so I struggled with balancing my school and extracurricular activities.
Overall, it was a year I had to adapt to and overcome the obstacles, that I mainly put in my way.
Contrary, there were some aspects of my sophomore year I really enjoyed. This was the first year I participated in my healthcare pathway, taking the intro class. I really enjoy learning more about content that may relate to my future career in medicine. This was also the first year that I was in all honors, and even though it was difficult for me, I enjoyed the classes.
Junior Year
Everyone was right about junior year being the most difficult. I thought the upperclassmen were being dramatic, but they were not. This year was full of struggles, late nights, and a few tears. AP Physics was one of the most miserable classes I've taken, given I was taking pre-calc at the same time, so it was difficult for me to understand the math that was being taught in physics. Additionally, I found a lot of struggle presenting in AP Seminar, as overcoming my presentation anxiety has been a struggle. Finally, balancing 3 Aps at the same time is extremely difficult, given the amount of extracurriculars I am in. (Wrestling, Softball, Sources of Strength, Student Council, Beta Club, National Honor Society.)A few positives of the year were my extracurriculars, this was the first time since I've been a student at Sprayberry that we made it to playoffs for softball. Alongside being this year's co-captain. On the wrestling team, I placed 3rd at region, allowing me to go to sectionals. Academically, I have loved taking AP Seminar, even though presenting is a huge struggle for me, I feel like I have had some growth in the class, especially with writing. I also enjoy that the class is just STEM academy students, as I have gotten the opportunity to know my peers better.
Honors Chemistry
The last unit in chemistry was about molarity and titration. Finishing out the unit we did a titration lab where we created a base with a Molarity of 2.0 to discover the molarity of an unknown acid, our group ended up finding a molarity of 0.13 roughly. I actually really enjoyed this lab because it was really challenging trying to get the solution as neutral as possible.
Honors Algebra 2
A task that was assigned to us after we completed Algebra 2 was to create an open topped box from a piece of paper with maximum volume. The biggest challenge I faced during this was writing the polynomial function, but after referencing back to my notes from earlier in the semester I found it to be much more managable.
Intro to Healthcare
In my Intro Healthcare class, we have done quite a few projects, but the one project I took the most from was the First Aid project. While doing this project it made me realize/recognize how thorough you have to be when treating a complete stranger, such as the asking for consent and explaining your medical background, etc. When doing this project we did ours on an insect sting and it really shows how thorough you have to be even on a tiny bug bite.
Acc. Precalculus
In Acc. Precalculus, Mrs. Wright assigned a Unit Circle project in which we had to take a creative take on drawing the Unit Circle, I took somewhat of a "Retro" hippie take on the circle, incorporating checker prints, flowers, etc.
Essentials of Healthcare
In my Essentials of Healthcare Class, our final project was to complete a "summary" project, which involved typing up definitions, functions, etc. and drawing the human body according to the rubric. Pictured below is our poster of the human anatomy.
Additionally, one of our projects was on the circulatory system, where we drew the heart, veins, arteries, and where the pulses are located in the human body.
AP Physics
As an extra-credit project in AP Physics, Mr. Shields assigned a Rube Goldberg project that incorporated units and concepts we have covered in the class. One of the requirements was to be festive and creative, so I based my video off of a winter episode of the office:The theme of “The Rube Goldberg Machine”:
When Dwight ruined the Christmas spirit for Jim, by attacking him with snowballs, Jim wanted to get revenge. Although, he wanted to get revenge in a way that could not be replicated by Dwight (Like his snowball attack) So, Jim decided to attack Dwight’s feelings by hanging up mistletoe in front of him, since he had no significant other during this holiday season. To make it festive he wrapped up Dwight’s favorite books in order to remind him of the prank when he was unwrapping it. So, contrary to his pranks normally, Jim took a more emotional approach to pranking Dwight.
AP Seminar
My IMP for AP seminar examined the extent that Christianity can be used to cope with trauma, looking into the views of Christians after experiencing a traumatic natural disaster and how that influenced their belief in God. There were some limitations, as I could not find any information on the view of non-believers, and I only examined Christianity and not other monotheistic or polytheistic religions.
My IRR for AP seminar examined the impact that peer influence has on the use of drugs at music festivals, primarily at the setting of music festivals. Some of the factors were the security measures put in place, the type of drugs, and what kind of peers a possible drug user hangs around (drug user, alcohol user, etc.) Overall, the security measures and environment play a vital role in one's decision whether or not to partake in the decision to use drugs.
Stem Activities
Mona Wade (Stem Guest Speaker)
Mona Wade works as a Software Engineer at Microsoft. She shared her story and resume with us. She had some interesting experiences with government agencies and helping with software in those cases. Although I don’t plan on going into a computer based job I found her talking about her experiences super fascinating!
John Pederson (Stem Guest Speaker)
John Pederson is a PhD researcher at Georgia Tech who came to talk to us about research at the University level, it was super interesting hearing about his experiences and different research opportunities.
USNA Summer Seminar
This year I've been accepted to attend the United States Naval Academy's Summer Seminar. I will be attending June 18th-23rd. This was a competition because the acceptance rate for Summer Seminar is ~30-40%. I signed up for the Biochemistry academic session, although we were asked to list our top 10 choices, so that's not a definite. This experience will not only be an academic one.
Volunteer Work
2021
Placemats for Transfiguration
In my Religious Ed class at transfiguration, they bring in service opportunities for us to do, we made placemats for an organization that plans meals and helps house women trying to get out of the sex industry, we drew on the bags they provide the bagged lunches in and we drew on placemats for the organized breakfasts they make. It was amazing to hear the story behind the organization and to be able to help in a way I can.
Sources of Strength
I have participated in Sources of Strength since 2nd semester of my freshman year! It is a mental health awareness club and between fall 2021 and spring 2022 I’ve gotten 36 service hours between then and now. Especially with my participation in S.O.S week!
2022
Christeen Trunk-or-Treat
As an active member of Christeen at my church we were encouraged to participate in Trunk-or-Treat, I decorated my trunk as a landscape from rainbow fish and handed out candy to the trunk-or-treaters.
Marti Maggie (Stem Guest Speaker)
Marti is a Senior Research Assistant at UNG (University of North Georgia) She does most of her work in the observatory there. Currently she is researching the wavelengths of supernovas, she was working on creating an algorithm that will predict lines of heavy elements. This was a super cool talk because at the time it corelated with what I was learning in Chemistry! How heavy metals appeared during star deaths, etc.
Cierra Mone (Stem Guest Speaker)
Cierra is a molecular technologist, she works with DNA sequencing in a clinical lab setting. I personally found her presentation super interesting, and afterwards I looked more into the field! I thought the idea of being able to take that close of a look at someone's genetics was amazing and it shows how technologically advanced we are.
HOSA
I joined HOSA because I am really interested in pursuing a career in the healthcare field. In addition, I am already in the Intro the Healthcare class, and the class really inspired me to be more involved.
Georgia Tech Sports Innovation Challenge
For our submission to this challenge, our group designed a wristband to help detect heatstroke. With an alert system it will be easier to prevent overheating and heatstroke by giving the athlete time to cool over before taking the field again!
Senior Year
Senior year flew by, first semester was relatively easy grades wise, but athletics wise I had tore my labrum and had to get shoulder surgery, which was definitely a mood dampener. Other than that, my classes were really interesting and I managed to do well. Second semester on the other hand, my motivation was definitely not there, especially after I had signed my NLI with Le Moyne, and had no real need to get good grades.
Regardless, I had to lock in anyway, or else my dad would probably take away my car. Second semester I was locked in up until after my AP Research project turn ins. Anyway, I think my academics and extracurriculars senior year helped prepare me for college!
Overall, this year was bittersweet, lots of endings and beginnings.
College Visits
Northern Kentucky University
September 2022 I went to Northern Kentucky University to learn more about their softball program alongside meeting with a biochemistry professor. It was a great expirience meeting the players and talking to Coach Gleason and Newport.
Agnes Scott College
February 2023 I got the opportunity to meet with Coach V, Marty, and Taryn at Agnes Scott College. One of the players, Preslee, showed me around campus and gave me the "inside" tips and tricks of life on campus.
Agnes Scott College
AP Research
For my AP Research project, I conducted a content analysis and a survey to determine whether or not there was a correlation between 15-19 year-olds viewing season 2 of Grey's Anatomy and Illness Anxiety symptoms. I then compared the results from my survey to frequently occurring events in the show. My conclusion was that despite my limitations, there is a correlation, but correlation does not equal causation.
AP Biology
In AP Biology, this was the 1st lab we did, we had to drop and catch rulers and mark how many centimeters they fell before we caught them. The theory being tested was whether or not sitting or standing proved to have an advantage in the reaction time of catching the ruler. While this activity was not explicitly on AP Biology topics, it established data collection for the class, and how to graph said data.
AP Statistics
AP Statistics was especially helpful when it came to conducting my research. Specifically when it came to learning about sample collection and distribution. There were many units in AP Statistics that when over sampling errors, biases, etc. Those topics taught us how to correctly collect data.
Activities
National Honor Society
I was inducted into National Honor Society last year, and I continued participation this year. I completed service hours and tutoring hours to remain eligible to stay in NHS, additionally NHS runs Trunk or Treat, so we were heavily involved in the preperation for that.
Service Hours
Christeen water olympics
August 2023, I volunteered through IMPACT (Influencing My Peers As a Catholic Teen) to help run the water olympics youth group night, I helped with set-up, clean-up, and running some of the stations.
Antioch Retreat
October 2023 - January 2024, I was able to volunteer to lead the confirmation retreat at my church (Transfiguration Catholic Church) This was my final year leading and/or participating in the retreat. I led a small group and gave a talk about how to rely on our faith in our times of struggle.
Breakfast with st. nick
December 2023, I volunteered at Transfiguration Catholic Church's "Breakfast with St. Nick" I helped set up the event, bake some of the cookies for the guests, and run the advent slime making station for the young kids.
8th/9th Grade retreat
March 2024 - April 2024, I was able to volunteer to lead my final Christeen retreat, which was the 8th and 9th retreat, I led a small group and gave a talk about the "Footprints in the Sand" poem and about how God will always carry us through our struggles.
Le Moyne College
June 2023 I got the opportunity to meet with Coach Roman and Coach Locey at Le Moyne College. I took a campus tour with a student there named Ryan!
