Mr. Olivas grew up right here in San Diego. He loves traveling and has lived in many different places like Australia, Argentina, and recently in South Africa but always returns because San Diego truly is America's finest city! As a San Diego native, he loves the outdoors and especially the ocean. In high school he was on the swim team, water polo team, and surf team. He went to UCSD to study marine biology and has done some research on sharks at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. He also spent all of his summers lifeguarding at Mission Beach and helping to run the San Diego Junior Lifeguard program. Mr. Olivas has taught high school and middle school math and science at several High Tech High schools since 2008 (but HTM NC is obviously his favorite!) He loves designing projects that allow students to learn new skills and apply them to make authentic work. He is always planning projects around preserving our natural world and our place in it as human beings. He loves to get creative with art, photography, and video inside and outside of school. In a past life he thinks he was a lion and in this current life he thinks he is a Jedi.