Coral Gables High senior Daniela Quijano’s International Baccalaureate community service project connects Gables with her former school in Colombia. She is raising money to buy a Promethean board to set up in a school in that country.
“One of the biggest thing I can do is inspire people to learn,” Quijano said. “If I can inspire people in Colombia, it all makes for success.”
She decided on the project because in Colombia she didn’t have access to the kind of materials they have here. Which is why in the future she hopes to be able to begin a program to tape science lectures by Gables teachers and post them on a website so they could be viewed in Colombia.
Upgrading the science education is one of her priorities because she always has loved science. It was frustrating to be eager to learn in a place where students’ advancing on their own was not encouraged. And the education wasn’t up to the standards that she has found here.
Science has been so important to her that she was instrumental in restarting the Science National Honor Society at Gables and is president of the club.
Her other school activities include being managing editor of the school’s online newspaper.
“I oversee other editors; I oversee staff writers,” she said. “I work alongside the editor-in-chief to make sure everything is going smoothly.”
Shes also is senior class treasurer and is involved in student activities.
In the summers, Quijano volunteers at the Key Biscayne Summer Fun Club at the yacht club. This past summer she was the head counselor.
“I loved it,” she said. “I wouldn’t change it for anything — especially with the little kids. I felt I was making a difference with them.”
In a few weeks Quijano will make her college decision. So far she’s been admitted to Florida State University with the freshman presidential scholarship, Northeastern University and the University of San Diego with a large scholarship offer.
“I want to study biochemistry,” she said.
—Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
