Abstract + Artifact of SLA Bike Week

Sam Sirochman
Rosalind Echols/Diane Laufenberg

My capstone was hosting/organizing a ride your bike to school week.


What I did for my capstone, was decide that May 21st-25th was going to be bike  week. The main goal of bike week was to increase the number of people who ride to school, in order to get a larger turnout I created a raffle with a grand prize of a $50 gift card to Modell’s and also created 4 different posters that I plastered around school everywhere to get the word out. Over time it became more clear that some people weren’t interested in riding alone. My next step was to group people up that are from the same neighborhood, so I started email chains within the communities of people, thus giving people a safer way to ride to school. My main objective was to get 50 more people to ride to school. Also with the influx of people riding to school, we were going to need a more efficient way of getting people to store bikes, so I also had to make the bike rack we had more useful by clearing all the stuff off of it and making it more accessible.



Sticker Final
Sticker Final

Unspoken Story: Students Pay Too Much For Senior Dues !

Option #1


Trying to figure out what i should write about. I wasn't thinking straight because i had other benchmarks and capstone work to do so i wasn't even thinking about something i should right. Well i'm pretty sure lots of people don't know how much everything came out to be there whole senior year. Then the juniors have no clue of what they have to pay and how much everything has to be, so me telling the story on it can have them a heads up for when they hit there senior year. It doesn't receive more attention because no one really talk about it because it's the end of the year already. Yes but at the same time no because there are seniors who haven't paid there dues but then i see it as in only a teacher would mention it out of the whole school because i personally think its already the end of the school year and who is going to keep bothering a student who hasn't paid there dues when before they had to do it but never did. So it's on them now not anyone else. I learned that my parents had to pay so much for my senior year because it wasn't only just me, but it was me and my sister Amaris Romero, then my parents had other stuff they had to pay so it was hard half of the time to actually give in money on time.



https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1KlcoCkxcFo2DMseW0DQassOogs47TLWmRV4ZI7fWBCE/edithttps://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1KlcoCkxcFo2DMseW0DQassOogs47TLWmRV4ZI7fWBCE/edit

This Philadelphia Life

Benchmark Reflection

•What did you find most challenging about this project?
I really enjoyed the freedom and flexibility of this project and
didn't have many difficulties except for lack of access to reliable
highspeed internet that would allow me to make the blog post and
submit my benchmark. Besides that, everything else went smoothly.

•How did you go about finding this story?
The idea for this story developed before I was given the benchmark
description, at a poetry event where a mentor of mine expressed his
outrage at the  Philadelphia Newspaper having a frontpage newstory
about a trash-talking puppet, yet countless youth who are doing
positive things get little acknowledgement. I wanted to highlight
stories of youth who were defying the stereotypes and fill a void of
positive stories about youth.

•Why do you think this story does not receive more attention?
As the subject in my interview said, stories like these just don't
sell. It isn't 100% the media's fault because I do think we as a
people have been conditioned to only get excited over the most extreme
stories instead of ordinary people doing good things. I also think,
many people want to tell this story but they're afraid that if they do
maybe no one will listen because there isn't a high demand for these
kind of stories.

•Do you think this story will get more attention over the next few
months?  Why?  Why not?

Honestly, I don't think that this story will get much attention
because it's just the way the world works. Our attencion spans are so
short when it comes to stories in the media that I doub't something as
positive as this will last long.

•What did you learn?

Through interviewing people I learned that most people do care about
their neighborhoods, the declining state of communities, want to do
something about it and have been for a while. Yet these ordinary
common heroes usually get under reported in the midst of violence,
school closings and celebrity scandals.

                                                  Bibliography

1) Chicago Public Media and Ira Glass.1995-2012. This American
Life.'Mr.Daisey goes to the Apple Factory.'April 16 2012 .Accessed
5/25/2012
- I used this podcast of the radio show This American Life as research
on how to structure my own podcast and an example of what good story
telling looks like. I found this resource to be very helpful and I
tried to incorporate some of the storytelling methods in my own
podcast and transitions.

2)Chicago Public Media and Ira Glass.1995-2012. This American
Life.What happened at Dos Eres' May 25 2012 Accessed 5/25/2012
- I used this podcast as further research on effective storytelling in
radio. I especially found this resource to be helpful and relevant
because I had previously learned about the conflict in Guatemala in my
Spanish class, so I was able to understand the information with my
background knowledge.

3)Chicago Public Media and Ira Glass.1995-2012. This American
Life.'Mortal Vs.Venial' April 27 2012 Accessed May 25 2012

I used this podcast of another edition of This American Life, the NPR
regular show, as an example of how to effectively do transitions.
Throughout my podcast there are many times in which I had to
transition from one story or statement to another with the use of
music and I did that with this podcast as one of my guides.

4)Chicago Public Media and Ira Glass.1995-2012. This American
Life.'What I did for Love' February 10 2010 Accessed May 25 2012
-I used this podcast as yet another example of how to tell a story
with interviews. This podcast was a very good example of what I was
looking for because it featured many different perspectives, stories
and had good transitions yet they were all tied together with the same
theme. I also used this as a guide for how to keep the listener
actively entertained.

5)Chicago Public Media and Ira Glass.1995-2012. This American
Life.'Reap What you Sow'January 27 2012 Accessed May 25 2012

I decided to use this podcast to help me understand how to present new
ideas through storytelling in a way that others would be able to
easily grasp and understand them. I particularly enjoyed listening to
this podcast because I felt that the topic of immigration laws in
Alabama was very interesting and insightful yet the information wasn't
laid on too thick because the story helped balance it out. This was
also very helpful in deciding which portions of the interviews were
necessary for the story and what had to be edited.
This Philadelphia Life(1)

Globalization - Photos - Yadi Angeles

Here is my benchmark:

Global Photo BM

Reflection

What I found most challenging in this project is surprisingly writing down the connections. I had a clear connection in my mind when I took the pictures, but it became very difficult to explain while I was actually typing it. I was actually expecting the finding pictures part more challenging, but I found myself quite easily finding connections through taking the pictures. 
I took pictures by walking around my neighborhood and thinking about the main themes. If I made a connection between a theme and something I saw, I'd take a picture. I selected the images that I saw the connections more strongly in. 
My favorite image is of the foreign Yu-Gi-Oh cards because I have recently become more open minded about a different card game. So when I learned a bit about these cards, it fascinated me how the exact same card in a different language could be worth more. In Germany, an english card is more valuable. That put something in perspective to me. How something not valuable at all to me, could be worth much more somewhere else.
I think globalization is pretty much the same everywhere. People just have to pause and actually look for it. 
I learned how important it is to keep an eye out for things in my day to day life. Sometimes it all just becomes a blur, and it's difficult to distinguish small things. I also learned how globalization is everywhere, especially now in this age where communicating with someone across the world isn't as difficult. 

Globalization in Philadelphia


The most challenging part about this project was how open it was. What my final product would become was totally up to what pictures I took. Basically no matter how many examples I tried to look up my project would take on the form of whatever work I did personally. That made it very hard for me to move forward quickly. 

I collected the images by first looking through my iPhoto for ideas on how simple an image could be for me to find the globalization in it. This ended up being a good idea because it actually told me most of the pictures I wanted to collect for the project. 

My favorite images are the last two, the picture of the Indian spice and the one of the blackberry. Those are the only pictures I took for reasons other than this project. They're my favorites because they were the first and best that I took. I think the paragraphs I wrote for them are also some of the best which is another plus. 

I do think there is less (positive) globalization in Philadelphia. I think because our city focuses less on the international cultural parts of our identity 365 days of the day, we lack in the knowledge and benefit of its influence. There are many places, such as 30th street station and penns landing that provide us with a lot of international culture but I feel that most of the culture lies in places like those that many people never go into.


This project taught me what globalization really was. I think it's funny that this time around I had more than enough experience with it but it was the knowledge I had trouble tapping into when usually in a project I have enough knowledge but need help applying it. The question of "What is globalization" came up a lot in this project and through completing it I finally figured out a little of what it is. 

Public Institutions and Social Media

My benchmark can be viewed here!

I was lucky to hear about Joe Murray's Twitter from a friend of mine, and it struck me as a great topic for this benchmark.  I'd never heard of it before, but it interested me and it was quite positive.  The hardest part was then finding other examples of public institutions and social media, but I'm happy with the ones I did find because in most respects they are pretty unrelated.  They cover a wide range of topics.  I do think this topic will receive more attention as it becomes clear how important social media is to communicating in this day and age.  Overall, I learned that more institutions use social media than I'd realized, and I shouldn't assume one doesn't just because I don't already know about it.  Often they simply aren't advertised much.

Bibliography:

Fieldler, Elizabeth, auth. "Philly Cops Bust Crime In 140 Characters Or Fewer." National Public Radio. N.p., n.d. web. 17 May 2012. <http://www.npr.org/2012/04/10/150355105/philly-cops-bust-crime-in-140-characters-or-less>.

Mulholland, Jessica. "Philadelphia Police Officers to Start Tweeting at Work." Government Technology. 17 April 2012: n. page. Web. 25 May. 2012. <http://www.govtech.com/public-safety/Philadelphia-Police-to-Start-Tweeting-at-Work.html>.

10 Photo Essay of Globalization in Philly


  • Click here for benchmark

    Reflection:
    What I found most challenging was writing about the connections between the image and a theme. I tried to branch out and have a varied collection to talk about so that it is not all the same things as everybody else. Plus writing in general is not something I'm best at so it was really hard to get started on the two paragraph explanations and have them be deep, meaningful, and insightful. When I first thought about this project I tried to get images that I knew I would go past on my everyday routine and try to find a deep connection to globalization with it. So for the first week I woud look very carefully at my surroundings and try to pick out stuff that nobody would really think twice at in regards to globalization then I went around having a regular camera, my phone camera and some pictures that I got from friends because I enlisted their help with gathering all the photos I needed. Personally my favorite image is the one of my dog. I love her so much that it scares my parents when I hug her because I may just squeeze to tight and pop her head off. Anybody that has seen me with my dog can guarantee that I love her the most and that she is my favorite being in the whole world. I learned a lot about the background of a lot of things and how there is a heck of a lot more globalizing going around then what I previously thought there was.

Rotary Club

Since the begging I knew that this brenchmark will be specially challenging because our teacher give us options to select from, which was nice but at the same time scary because each option was hard in a way, wasn’t a safe choice. I chose the uncover story to find a good news in the city and show it because sometimes I feel like the people in Philadelphia underestimate the city and think that everything is bad.

For the reason that is a news article I couldn’t stay set in front of my computer and write a paper, I had to research and find people who will support my story in order to show that is real. Rotary Club is the organization that is sponsoring my exchange program and besides that they do a lot of good community service so was a pleasure for me talk about that fantastic people. 

Q4Brench

Capstone 2012-The High School Anthology

A Study of Thematic Evolution

By Michael Dea

Capstone Mentor: Ms. Larissa Pahomov

 

Topic:

The goal of this capstone was to examine poetry and short stories over the course of four years to see how, if at all, the themes of the writing change over time.

 

            During the proposal stages of the capstone process, I looked at what I found interesting and what I enjoyed doing. As a result, I chose a capstone with a creative writing basis, given that I wrote as a hobby previously. Once the plans for what the end goal of the capstone were determined, the process of selecting what works would go into the end product was begun, supplementing some areas with works that were begun within the year. After this step’s completion, the selected works were analyzed for possible connections, the details of which can be seen in the process paper. Throughout this process, given that the works were written, they were reviewed by others for input on things such as themes, revisions (for newer works) etc.


Capstone Section 1: Poetry Notebook 1


Capstone Section 2: Poetry Notebook 2


Capstone Section 3: Poetry Notebook 3


Capstone Section 4: Zombie Apocalypse Novella

https://docs.google.com/a/scienceleadership.org/document/d/1S3R1ogie_LlpSEFakc_PxKKpc5trdufg1m9V1q2yeig/edit

Shelby Harcher's Globalization 4th Quarter BM



For this project, the most challenging part was coming up with a topic. Living in a large city there are many topics one could choose when working on a project like this. I knew that I wanted to focus on education, but I wasn't sure what I wanted to exactly talk about. At first, I was going to talk about positive stories about individuals who were apart of the Philadelphia School District, however, with lack of time and resources, I decided to talk about extracurriculars in the school district after seeing my little brother's play at his school. In the past few years, there have been many budget cuts and after-school programs and activities have been the first to go, especially those dealing with the arts. 

To be honest, I believe that stories like these go unnoticed because there are so many bad things going on in the city, the media finds it necessary to inform people about those stories before the positive ones. Many people enjoy hearing positive stories about the city, especially those dealing with the youth so I think that more stories like these should be told. However, I don't think that within the next few months this story or any similar one will be told because first off, school will be closing for the summer, and also because this has been going on for awhile now, and it's still not getting noticed by the media or the rest of the city. 

Doing this project made me learn that there are many good things about our school district. A lot of stories you hear about the Philadelphia School District are bad so hearing something good was refreshing. Also, I learned that if there are obstacles thrown at people who are determined to do something, they will find a way to get around it and do what they're passionate about. 

Unconventional Teacher Fund Raising in Philadelphia

By Marina Stuart and Jason Davis

For this project we worked to tell the untold story of unconventional teacher fund rasing in Philadelphia. From microgrant dinners to parent initiated car washes, people invested in education in Philly and doing a lot to continue financing the school district. One of the most challenging things about the project was choosing which stories to tell because there are so many people doing great things to fund their schools. This kind of story doesn't receive a lot of attention because most people only want to hear about how much the school district is losing and simply the hard numbers. I hope this story and those involved get more attention soon because it is important for the citizens of Philadelphia to know that individuals are doing whatever they can to continue education here. I learned about how much people care about students in the city and has given me some hope for the future.

To read to the full story click here!

Above The Class – America's Gifted Youth

In this project, I reported on the necessity of Gifted Education in the classroom. This topic has been of much interest to me due to my familiarity with the system and its challenges. To get information about this story, I talked to many friends and family members who are familiar with the successes and challenges of Gifted Education. I think that this issue does not receive very much attention due to the overshadowing counterpart of Special Education. If anything, due to the rising rates of Autism, this topic will become even more overshadowed and will receive even less attention. From this project, I learned about local crisis reporting, understood how current Gifted students view gifted programs, and even had the opportunity to investigate some of my mother's various awards for Gifted Education efforts.

To download the full story, click here.

Inside/Out

My capstone was working to create a mural with a youth group in Pennsauken, NJ called BPSOS Delaware Valley Basement Breakers (B3) on a project called Inside/Out.

 

The Inside/Out project was started by a French street artist who goes by J.R. He won the TED global prize last year for his idea of using photography to turn the world Inside Out. People from all around the world participate in the project, as they take photos of facial expressions, submit to the website, and receive large black and white copies to paste in a public space. SLA had done similar project under the JFK bridge. Through this project,  participants journal extensively with questions about their identity and hopes. Through exploring questions such as “where is your home? Where do you come from? Have you ever felt like you are the problem?” participants would be able to have a space to start thinking deeply about themselves and the world around them.


Digital Artifacts come soon!!!

Globalization in Philadelphia - Photo Essay

As I walked through Philadelphia doing my very best to find examples of Globalization, I found myself overwhelmed. Examples of globalization were practically everywhere. Every street corner had a different flavor to it. It's almost as if you can sense a shift in culture as you walk. And for every shift, there were plenty of pictures to be taken. That said, sometimes it was hard to take pictures that had a different feel to them. It almost always felt like the real photo you were taking was an odd juxtaposition, not a true mix of cultures. That said, I particularly liked the photo inside of the Perelman building's chapel, because that was a more true mix of cultures. Islam, Judaism and Christianity all coming together in the same room to remember that we are all humans, and while medicine can do many things it's important to hold onto faith.
There is no doubt in my mind that globalization is prevalent in Philadelphia. How prevalent, well that is up for debate. Philadelphia certainly has it's fair share of evidence showing globalization, but how true might this be in Pittsburgh  which breathes (or used to) American steel and sheer production, leaving very little to be imported. Chances are Philadelphia takes in a bit more foreign culture, but when you compare it to a place like New Orleans, there's no question that New Orleans has more evidence of globalization.
With all that said and done, I learned that globalization can be where you least expect it. Just because your house was made with American materials doesn't necessarily mean it's an American house. Architecture borrows a huge amount across the world. Just because you bought a GM car doesn't mean that the raw materials weren't harvested else where or even assembled else where. Examples of society trying to hide globalization are almost as prevalent as society trying to showcase globalization.

You can read more about my explorations and analysis of globalization in Philadelphia here.

Uyen Nguyen: High school Blood Drive


Summery
For my senior capstone, I am putting myself on a task to host a school blood drive. I will be working with the American Red Cross crew to set up and host a blood drive here at Science Leadership Academy.


Abstract 
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My capstone was to participate, get certified by Red Cross to host a Blood Drive and also to recuit donors. My task was to plan out a Blood Drive event and to use my ability to organize everything and getting it into SLA. My partner(Gisela Giolafina) and myself organized multiple meetings and short announcement  to grabs students and teacher's attention to drawn themselves into participating and becoming a blood donor. We also got certified to train volunteers to make sure we have enough helpers and keeping our environment safe for all. We also reserved the drama studio specially for the event and maintain the amount of kiodic to minium level. With the help of students and teachers, we were able to do a run though and complete our project smoothly.

Co-captain of the Pep Squad Club Creates a show

 

 

     Step team performance &

      The “Show your colors” show

 

Ashley Etheredge

Mr. Bey



Manuel Advisory

 

Summary

I helped create a club (SLA’s fist pep-squad), I put on a show as well as choreographed a step routine that was performed in the show.

Abstract

My project was a performance that was based around SLA’s new pep-squad; I put on the show; including getting acts, setting up the performance space and setting the date and time but I also choreographed a step routine that was performed in the show. My step team performed in my show the “Show your colors” show, which was originally going to be a Black History Month show however; due to complications (of which I will explain in depth later in this paper) I was unable to meet my deadlines and missed Black History Month. I wanted to create a club that would continue on at the school after I was gone, that girls and boys could continue into college if they wanted to. I felt that this club could bring people together from all grades like other clubs such as SLA capella, Ping pong and the Poetry club but in a different way that people might not have seen before. I wanted to give insecure teenage girls and boys more self-confidence while having a ton of fun and meeting new people.


If you were unable to attend the show, don't worry you can view it here!

The Transit Navigator – Jeff Kessler's 2012 Capstone Project

Transit Navigator Logo.001



The Transit Navigator uses a website and other web tools to improve the usability of Public Transportation ("make public transit navigation simple").


Capstone Summary:

This capstone project developed and founded the innovative resource known as The Transit Navigator. The service takes two approaches to solving the problem of simplifying transit systems. First, the website provides detailed but simple information about public transit in a variety of cities. This makes it easy to understand the transit options available, how to navigate them, and where to learn more. The other aspect of TransitNav is the use of foursquare tips to facilitate on-the-go information. Users can simply follow transitnav on foursquare for access. When they check-in at a location, the system automatically populates one of The Transit Navigator's numerous tips and displays it on their screen. Foursquare's "Lists" feature allows users to browse these TransitNav suggestions by region and service. There are also a few TransitNav sightseeing guides that make it easy to quickly explore a region. Personal experience (over six years of gathering transit knowledge and working as an Amtrak intern!), mapping tools (such as Google Maps), photographs (from photo-sharing tools) and individual transportation sites acted as references. Plus, thanks to the "live" nature of the Transit Navigator Web Terminal, these resources will continually be updated as new information is required. Check it out online at http://transitnav.com!

A Checkers Game written in Java

For my capstone project, I created a Checkers game using the Java language. Creating a checkers game in the Java language requires translating the rules of the board game into something the computer can actually understand. Most of the time was spent on just acquiring a basic knowledge of computer science from my mentor, Mr. Miles. The rest was spent actually developing the game with the assistance of Jobe Naff.

Below are some screenshots of the checkers game and code:
Capstone1
Capstone1
Capstone2
Capstone2

Emma Hersh Quarter 4 Benchmark Reflection

​For the forth quarter I decided to do an option that was not actually on the list, I added a point to Jared Diamond's five point framework (to make it a six point framework). My point was the impact of the government on collapse was never mentioned in any of the chapters and it should have been. So I went in and researched all of the chapters that I thought an explanation of the government at the time would be helpful to completely understanding the collapse of that society. I chose Rwanda, the Dominican Republic and Haiti, and China. The most challenging aspect of this project was fully understanding the economic state of the country as well as what type of government was in place and understanding the dynamics. I was also interested in the history of the government and what they are currently doing in their own country and in the global community. Another difficult part for me was analyzing what I had found and making it relevant to the book and the work that Jared Diamond was doing. If I were to do this again I would also analyze one of my countries from the benchmark last quarter like Mali, because as soon as I turned in the benchmark a coup took over the country. 
Here is the link to my final website product. 

Newon's Capstone

I will be creating my own line of Liberian-Inspired prom dresses. There will be hopefully about six or seven dresses in the collection and I will be having full involvement in in everything that goes one. I plan to study and learn more about fashion design and more in college and it’s practically all I could think about since ninth grade. The product I’m creating is even more appropriate because then I’ll have something to start up on when I head to college and when I create my own business. Like I said before I’ve had this project in mind since ninth grade because I knew it would make applying to colleges much better since I would have my own line already out and doing well.

Here a link to my Capstone blog:  http://libcapstone.blogspot.com/ 

Pure Love Capstone 2012

For my Capstone, I planned out what I was going to make, how I was going to make it, how I was going to fund it, who I was going to sell my products to, and much more. I thought about what the design was going to look like, the color scheme, and how I was going to organize the label on the bottle. I went to stores and looked at examples of natural products that people have made and I asked them questions about how they made them. This is my temporary logo and may be my permanent logo depending on how well I can make another one :).

Blood Brings out the Best


The most challenging part of this benchmark was actually finding a story. My initial idea was to find a super tragic story that nobody paid any mind to but then I got the idea to report on something positive about a teen. I feel live negativity about Philadelphia teenagers are over reported but the accomplishments we make are under reported. I remembered what an exceptional student Shalia Wallace is and saw how good of a deed she was doing by running a blood drive was so I decided to report her story. Not just Shalia but other teens all over the city and their accomplishments are unreported because there are so many teens who are doing wrong and the media just has so much more to say about that. I think this story will get some attention but not a bunch of attention because it isn't a negative or tragic story that captures peoples attention which is sad. It's a shame that people would rather hear about a shooting rather than teens making differences in their communities but that's the reality of it. Overall, I learned that the process of running a blood drive isn't as simple as it may seem and requires time and dedication to ensure that the drive is successful.
Q4Glob.BM

high functioning autism

http://bit.ly/KRme1i
http://bit.ly/KRmy0f
http://bit.ly/KRmBZN
http://bit.ly/KMvMra

My topic was how does teens go through High School with having high Functioning Autism. In order to complete the project I had to develop questions to ask the students to help me go through this process. To understand the capstone process it takes a lot of researching, collaboration, Inquiry that are the main components of completing any project at Science leadership.


322x Productions & Creations - Tariq

My Senior Capstone Project was to take the existing non-profit organization that I co-founded last year, and providing youth with opportunities to showcase their individual talents to large amounts of people. I am collaborating with two close friends to demonstrate 3 different components of running an organization. The section that I am focusing on is the production phase of the organization. This essentially is the execution the projects that we have scheduled and the process that we undergo to make these ambitions a reality.
322x Productions & Creations (Official Logo)
322x Productions & Creations (Official Logo)