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My name’s Qawyyah Powers and for my senior project/Capstone I decided to do a Stop the violence teen pop-up shop. Throughout my project, I have been working diligently to get everything together. I’ve handpicked every single vendor either by friends or by request. One of my friends helped to create our Pop-Up Shop flyer; he was very respectful and understanding of every detail that needed to be changed. I’ve also been working with Dimplez 4 Dayz as they’ve helped me perfect every detail of my Pop-Up Shop. I was also In contact with both Council Member Gauthier and Brooks to see If they’d be Interested In speaking to the youth about the violence within our city.

On April the 9th I finally got to host my pop-up shop and honestly It was an amazing experience, I was finally able to see my dream become a reality. The amount of support that I and the other vendors received brought me joy. In my opinion, It was very successful and I enjoyed every last minute of It. The only sad part was that Councilwomen Brooks couldn’t make It due to a funeral. However, I and Council Women Gauthier were able to speak and I was able to tell my story which I could tell hit home for most.

For my Capstone, I partnered with Terrell Smith to learn how to use the Computer numerical control (CNC) machine. In more simple terms, a CNC is like a laser cutter mixed with a 3D printer. My partner and I first began with the basics by researching, and learning the machine. Once we were comfortable, we started working on random projects, then individual projects. Finally, we sent out a survey to the whole school to fill out, asking them what they would like us all to make. With the responses, we were able to make plenty of things for the students in our school.

During the years 2021-2022, I created my own very planet. I came up with every single detail of it. Including the name of the planet, what color it is, what is on the planet, etc. I did this because it plays into the whole “mystery of the unknown” type deal. The planet I create might not be far off from a planet that we have no idea about beyond what we can observe. I decided to do this because wanted to give my peers an example of how your imagination is capable of being a reality. My Planet is named ‘Astra’ which is a Latin phrase for ‘To the Stars”. I picked this because as you move around my planet, you get certain gleams depending on where you turn it in sunlight. The colors I have chosen are Black, Magenta, Pink, and Blue. Pink/Magenta firstly states that the planet rises to temperatures of 460 degrees! This intense heat, causes the planet to glow this instance of Pink and Magenta. Blue mainly plays into the abundance of water you find on the planet. So what do you get with hot temperatures and water? Air masses. They’re huge atmospheric volumes with specific humidity characteristics. In other words, Water vapor. The air on my planet is considered moist and humid. To further pull together my planet, I used the “Unobservable Universe” as my example. We don’t know what lies beyond what we CAN observe. This gives us the ongoing thought of ‘Who or What is out there?’ I want to show my peers that quite literally anything is possible. It might not be in this lifetime, planet, or dimension, but what I want to get at is that it CAN exist or IS existing somewhere.

For my capstone I answered the guiding question, “How can video games teach us?”. I decided to answer this question with the creation of a website compiling multiple studies and examples of video games that teach. I also made a video about how some specific games use tutorials to teach us. The project was a very comfortable and fun project to create, and It helped me further my research and video creation skills.

Website: https://sites.google.com/slabeeber.org/learning-through-games

Video:

My capstone was the yearbook for the class and school year of 21-22. The picture that I linked below was the cover that I designed for the yearbook as our theme is Netflix. In addition to working on the design of the yearbook itself, I have also organized photo days, collecting photos and information. The yearbook committee started by collecting pictures and working on getting information from the class of 22’. We all had a role and I was working on organizing all of it. I feel that I have learned so much about myself as a student, a creator, and a worker. Balance has been something that I have worked to improve during this project as a quality that is important as I am working on making a book and still finishing my schoolwork. Another thing that I have had to work on is control. I have a sense of wanting things to be perfect especially when I have a lot of responsibilities involved in the project, my want for perfection kicks in. Having control but not using it to the extent of perfecting every single little detail is something that I have had to work on, and keep a sense of balance. This project has been important to me because it is something to commemorate the class of 22. The class that was the first to come back from covid. A class that deserves a book of memories.

Hello, My name is Damien DiGiacomo, and I, along with Kasim Divers have done something amazing. We started project plants in classrooms. This project allows us to Help put plants in various classrooms throughout the school. We committed to doing extensive research on how plants can affect the classroom and how it operates in different ways. One study we found suggests that students actually pay attention better when plants are present in classrooms. A year-long study at The Royal College of Agriculture in Cirencester, England, found that students demonstrate 70% greater attentiveness when they’re taught in rooms containing plants. The focused and more attentive students showed to perform better on tests and even retain information slightly better. The way we went about this project was first we consulted a teacher from school and then we proceeded to go out and buy all the necessary materials to complete the process. We intended to grow the plants ourselves at first but this would have taken quite a while. So instead we decided to buy some partially grown plants and then grow them a bit ourselves before handing them out. All the teachers who received plants seemed to be very happy to have them. This whole project has been a fun experience for us, we hope that project plants in classrooms will help all the students to come after us.

Hello, My name is Kasim Divers, and I along with Damian Digiacamo have done something amazing. We started project plants in classrooms. This project allows us to Help put plants in various classrooms throughout the school. We committed to doing extensive research on how plants can affect the classroom and how it operates in different ways. One study we found suggests that students actually pay attention better when plants are present in classrooms. A year-long study at The Royal College of Agriculture in Cirencester, England, found that students demonstrate 70% greater attentiveness when they’re taught in rooms containing plants. The focused and more attentive students showed to perform better on tests and even retain information slightly better. The way we went about this project was first we consulted a teacher from school and then we proceeded to go out and buy all the necessary materials to complete the process. We intended to grow the plants ourselves at first but this would have taken quite a while. So instead we decided to buy some partially grown plants and then grow them a bit ourselves before handing them out. All the teachers who received plants seemed to be very happy to have them . This whole project has been a fun experience for us, we hope that project plants in classrooms will help all the students to come after us.

Hi, my name is Sahiba Saini and I am class of 2022. For my capstone, I decided to make an information website about the 2020-2021 Farmers Protest. I chose to do my capstone on this topic as it is very relevant to me, my community, and society. As the only Punjabi who is a part of the Sikh community, in the SLA student and staff body, I believe it is my responsibility to share and spread awareness about the issues taking place in Punjab, India. Over the year and a half, I have been constantly gathering information to put together and upload to the website. I want this website to be a platform where anyone can learn about the Farmers Protest, which also happens to be the largest protest in history. I have gathered information from primary and secondary sources to make sure I display the most accurate information I can while giving credit where it’s due. The website includes everything from the start of the protest to the middle and the end. From this process, I have been able to learn and apply many important skills such as time management, research, and communications. I used these skills to create a website that is easily accessible and easy to guide through. After months on this capstone, I’m proud to finish and publish my very own website about an issue I care deeply about.

For my Capstone, I decided to create a website. This website came from when I was struggling with thinking of what I should do for this project, which lead me to constantly change my mind and procrastinate. I set up this website to help students or anyone, in general, to calm down and take a deep breath from the struggles that they are currently facing in their lives. I just hope that this website helps people the way it helps me being on it and that people know that it is okay to take a break in life.

Website link: https://gforte22.wixsite.com/my-site-1

For my capstone project, I decided to make a podcast dedicated to the lower grades such as 9th and 10th graders and those rising to 9th. It wasn’t my first capstone idea either, Originally, I wanted to have a capstone oriented around some form of volunteer work. The plan was for it to relate to the organization/group that I attended meetings with. Which made sense to me at first, due to the program being affiliated with Science Leadership Academy. Overall, I changed my idea to be something easily relatable to, which was school. So I set out to do it. For my capstone, all I had to get was two fellow seniors, a script, something to record with, and a cheap little tripod. Honestly, you don’t need everything in the world to make something you’re proud of.

For my capstone, I want the students to have a fulfilling experience before entering high school. Many schools nowadays are just repeatedly teaching the students what would help them in the future when in reality it is a waste of time. But not engineering. By learning about engineering you are teaching yourself with the help of others. In the engineering curriculum, you are learning how to think out of the box, strategy on math or writing skills, and most importantly teamwork. Teamwork is a big thing in engineering and any field you put your mind to. With my experience for the four years that I have been hand-selected to be in CTE at Science Leadership Academy at Beeber, I have learned the importance of knowing what you want and learning how to do it without feeling stress over something that can or may affect the input before the situation ever occurs. I am teaching my students that with the skills from being in a field like Engineering you can know and be hands-on with everything. I feel you are more likely to be drawn into something if can do it yourself and be proud of what made seem like a lot. For the last couple of weeks, I want to have a clear understanding of what engineering is and what it could do in the present time; because we are living in a world full of engineers changing and trying to make the best of what we have. Now was it an easy process? No, but it was a great experience.

My process for this project was interesting. When this started, I had a completely different idea than what I ended up with. I went from considering a hospital internship to leaning into my artistic side. My project ended up being a portfolio of sorts. My main focus was to design an item of clothing and make it using a sewing machine, which I accomplished. I felt that this wasn’t enough for my own personal project, so I created a small website portfolio with other forms of my art. This includes traditional drawings, digital art, painting, etc. This project allowed me to appreciate art more, if I’m honest. It had always been a big part of my life, but until now, I hadn’t really created any sort of portfolio. It allowed me to look at my own art in a new light, and I appreciate that. (Original design for the jacket I made below.)

SWBAT - Have an understanding of the Science Leadership Academy at the Beeber Building. Most Importantly you will understand why a map is so important for SLA students instead of just numbers on a sheet of paper.

I wanted to see if safety could be taught in a way where it was more memorable. A lot of my classmates I now don’t know CPR even if they were taught it beforehand. I thought that maybe the way it was taught could have been the problem so I made my game educational about general safety that I thought an SLA student could use. The outcome was an interesting game that I don’t think would help the problem. After making my capstone, I realize someone only memorizes something if they are motivated to. to that end, if my game motivated people to retain the knowledge maybe the outcome would be different.

Game: https://cloudnovel.net/SSmaster46/novel/safety-soul

I asked myself this year how I could “capture SLA”. The purpose was to bring the students of my school a bit closer tother and to remind them that it’s a community. To achieve this I chose to collect photos of our students and display them all over the school. This was a gradual process and I printed the photos with my own money. I was quite ambitious at first and wanted photos everywhere and on every floor, but I am not rich. I just have one wall on the third floor covered in photos that I’ve received a lot of positive feedback on. It is nice to be able to look back and see what happened this school year whenever you want. I know we have a few photos here and there taken, but I want to make sure there are more than enough taken and displayed so that everyone and anyone can see. I think this little project benefited the students a little. I think my goal was accomplished. I even found a successor to carry out this project next school year. I’ve also created a social media page to store the photos digitally.

For my final project at SLA, I chose to expand upon an activity that I have been doing for the past four years, which is playing the piano. However, this year I wanted to do something more than just “playing the piano”. I wanted to truly capture the essence of utilizing music to augment our school’s atmosphere. I foresaw this through playing instruments throughout the school during transitional timeframes, such as lunch. I would play the grand piano at the entrance of the school and have students gather around and chill. Additionally, I would play my guitar or ukulele and fill the school hallways with music as students would walk by and listen. I also used my music to fulfill the creative aspects of class projects. Furthermore, I participated in the school play by being the music scorer. In the process of executing my capstone project, I feel as though I learned that music is one of the most essential methods for creating a sense of harmony within a community.

https://youtube.com/shorts/GUeJJuTVQrc?feature=share

For my Capstone, I partnered with Victoria Williams to learn how to use the Computer numerical control (CNC) machine. In more simple terms, a CNC is like a laser cutter mixed with a 3D printer. My partner and I first began with the basics by researching and learning the machine. Once we were comfortable and aware of how to properly use the CNC, we started working on random projects, then individual projects. Finally, we sent out a survey to the whole school to fill out, asking them what they would like us all to make. With the responses, we were able to make plenty of things for the students in our school.

For my Capstone project, I wanted to focus on the theme of child development. I thought the best way to base a project on this was to build a toy that helps a child develop different important qualities that they need. At first, I was going to build a balance bike because it helps with balance, becoming independent, and hand-eye coordination. I realized I did not have the proper tools in order to complete this project, so I decided to change it into a more simple puzzle that teaches kids pretty much the same things. Basically, the puzzle is a small board that has pegs on it, the kid has to put the correct shape on the correct peg. I thought of it as a suitable replacement for the balance bike because it helps children develop independence, hand-eye coordination, and fine motor skills. It also helps young kids with their shapes, colors, and numbers.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1IJPe-Yd7k8m8l3m-GIwtj2802ppxcE_qOprR2E_dBNI/edit?usp=sharing

For my capstone project, I was planning to make something like an app and after that, I am planning to create a photo editing and I am kind of interested in that type of thing and I am pretty sure people also like photo editing and all those things that’s why I thought let create a make photo editing app and this was my first time like making an app and I had so much fun when I was making this app.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1jzBlIzSWYy4IroVHp4Ju9zCMFOHfD9ghI4g4JOsGL2M/edit?usp=sharing

For my capstone, I worked with both Sam Bryan and Teia Hudson. Together we made a podcast titled ‘Gen Z Let’s Increase Visibility’. Through our podcast, we researched and discussed social issues in our society today as well as interviewed other peers for their thoughts on our topics. Our goal was to spread awareness and educate about these social issues so we could work towards a better future. Some of our topics included abortion rights, metal detectors at schools, and more.

For our last and final project for our Senior year, Gabriel and I decided to handcraft a wooden bench. The reason we chose to do this is that we wanted to put our CTE and Engineering skills to use and create something that would leave behind our senior class’ legacy. Throughout our process, we did come across many challenges when it came to measurements and making sure our materials were fitting. Nevertheless, we were able to complete our main task.

Additionally, even though we did not get to paint over the bench and have all the seniors sign it as we originally planned, we were still able to sign it ourselves. That way, even when we leave, the school will still carry a piece of us.

My proposal for my capstone project was to start an art therapy club. I want to do this project because mental health is important especially in adolescents that face challenges. We would meet up during lunch on fridays in the auditorium. For our first activity we decided to create zentangles. A zentangle is a method for drawing. This exercise helps promote concentration along with creativity. When making one you start by drawing a frame on the paper. Then you divide the existing space into smaller parts. The next step is to make a pattern within the blank spaces. Another session we made our own designs on stickers which was inspired by street art. My personal experience with art is that drawing can be a calming way to express yourself when feeling anxiety. My goal for this project was to share my passion of drawing to show other adolescents how they can use drawing to deal with anxiety. I discovered that seeing the work of other artists inspires me to create my own art. It has helped me learn different techniques and perspectives towards the topic. When reviewing my peers’ work it is like I am able to get a peak into their mind. It helps me get a better understanding of where their ideas come from.

For my Capstone Project I decided to do a community clean up. The project consisted of me talking to my neighbors and organizing all of us to come together and clean our community up. In order to complete this project I had to grab a couple items ranging from trash bags to masks to keep everyone sanitized and safe. We then used the items I purchased in order to clean our community up. This is beneficial to my community because it makes my neighbors and I have a cleaner area which also helps the earth. As my project came to an end I learned that community relationships and keeping your community clean allows us to create better relationships with each other while doing something positive. Cleaning the neighborhood made the community come together because we all had the same interests despite our different lives and situations. As I completed the project it allowed me to learn more about myself. I understand now that I enjoy helping others and making a difference in the community.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1HoWTZDbvAbDs7A4hXUbwN33jhPt1jTAdfbQQOIFT_zY/edit?usp=sharing

I must adhere to the key ideals of inquiry, research, collaboration, presentation, and reflection as a student at SLA Beeber. My capstone project will reflect all of these fundamental ideals. The goal of this project is to demonstrate the skills and abilities I’ve gained during my four years at school by creating my own project that will assist the community or society. In this project, I want to solve two problems with one solution. Addressing this problem has the potential to benefit all living things on the planet. The major purpose of my initiative is to reduce pollution and repair the ozone layer. We can improve environmental instability by making this product simple and available to everyone. In this project, I’ll build an electric bike as a prototype for an environmental improvement strategy. Individuals who seek speedy and convenient travel while reducing environmental impact will be offered the go-kart. By switching from steam to electric engines in autos. While this concept is based on those two aspects, environmental protection and human assistance, it is a step toward a better future because it could be mass-produced to reduce the usage of gas vehicles by making it more convenient for people. This strategy will benefit the community while also educating them. It will teach the community how to be free.

For my capstone project I worked closely with Jasmine to create A Boss Brunch. This project was very tedious and took lots of time and patience to execute. We worked on this project throughout the school year and when the time finally came it was such a huge relief. We reached out to some well known brands in Philly and they came to support us and give inspirational speeches. Throughout this project I learned how to network, build, and be open to different ideas and opinions. I learned more about peoples work ethics and how not everyone is going to work at the same pace as you or even put in the same amount of effort as you. This project built me as a person and it built my brand. One of the young entrepreneurs that attended the pop-up shop has also seen a recent spike in his sales, one has decided to go to the art museum and promote his brand, and all of the others have continuously reached out after the pop up shop with business opportunites for all of the other brands.