ms. claudia -- to ms. claudette colvin.want to thank him for his efforts in securing these proclamations. if ms. colvin would come up as well. >> it is an honor to be asked to make these presentations. the elected officials represented here are trailblazers themselves. many of them have been the first in their community to hold office. for example, ed lee, the first chinese-american to be appointed mayor in san francisco, is represented in this group. so is our congresswoman, nancy pelosi, the first woman ever to become speaker of the house in the history of the united states. [applause] tom amiano, who has been a historic figure and trailblazer, coming from the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered community. [applause] also, our newest elected official, supervisor cohen, with her election last november at age 32, is the youngest african-american ever to be elected to the board of supervisors. [applause] she is now san francisco's highest-ranking elected official who is african-american, one of three women on the 11-member

ms. claudia cooper for five minutes, thank you. >> good morning, chairman hall and ranking member johnson as well as the other members of the science committee. i want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to share the amazing experiences that students at west hills middle school have the opportunity to take in and be a part of in the science classroom. the explorer vision program has become a tradition here at west hills. this is my sixth year being a sponsor of the program, and every year it evolves and gets better and better. this year along with claudia cooper and samantha, we also in addition to the second place title had nine hon national mention teams as well, and back in 2008, i had the privilege and honor of coming back to the explorer visions weekend, and i was also the coach of a team back in 2008 who also took the second place national title. the explorer vision program is near and dear to my heart. overtime as i carried out the program with the students, changes have been made to make it better, increase the amount of science skills, math skills, verging skill, and this

claudia? >> well, you know, i'm in the school the seventh grade time where it depends on what you mean by cool. [laughter] i guess, ms. attard when the first are the unit showed us in pensions that were -- we knew who the inventors were, and after she gave us the names and we said yeah, that's kind of cool. and then, of course, before our time a little, she showed me her first bill nye the science guy tv show. so i think that's what really triggered our minds by integrating the competition into our school kind of -- are people who went home, they went on google, a tight end who invented the microwave, and to come to school the next day and share with everyone. so i guess it kind of was okay. >> all right. alison? >> i go to high school which is a very science oriented high school, and we are kind of nerdy. so i don't know if we really represent everyone, but to become an engineer, a lot of kids aspire to be a scientist, and a lot of our parents are scientists or engineers, doctors. and everyone admires their parents so much. and they think everyone really admires, and we think it is cool. >> being admired is cool. le