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For my Capstone, I created “Who Is The Image,” a multimedia website examining the representation of women of color in media and social media culture. Driven by my own experiences with harmful stereotypes and exclusion, my project went far beyond a traditional research paper, combining interview narratives, collage art, a podcast episode, anonymous social media submissions, a media literacy guide, and a community resource guide into a single interactive platform. My process involved extensive research into the historical roots of misrepresentation, designing interview protocols, hosting an identity collaging workshop, and collaborating with peers, totaling over 80 hours of work. The project aligns with my future studies in Media and Technology Cultures and reflects SLA’s core values of inquiry, collaboration, presentation and reflection. What I am most proud of is the non-traditional, human-centered approach I brought to my research, building a space for dialogue that treated participants as full people rather than data points. I hope my project models the kind of critical media literacy and community storytelling needed to challenge and rewrite the narratives that marginalize women of color.

Annotated Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mPH-A0Y20URyF3SqkkPxWfq4woTYc4WlLV1xKlTJS6k/edit?usp=sharing

Capstone Site: https://judicious-broker-539.notion.site/Who-Is-the-Image-34f1c401f9b08099ab08f46c659df8b7?source=copy_link

Textile arts stretch back thousands of years and are one of the oldest forms of storytelling modern people can still access. For my capstone, I wanted to visually capture a story of SLA’s community and what it has meant to me in shaping my high school experience through a quilted tapestry. Through this process, I also wanted to incorporate an issue that is very important to me, which is sustainability within arts spaces and the issues regarding the current pollution of the textile industry. For this reason, I completed my tapestry using only pre-owned or secondhand materials. In terms of the construction of my capstone, I used a multitude of fiber arts skills including sewing, quilting, looming, interfacing, embroidering, and beading. While I undertook this project with some basic experience, I was able to become a lot more confident both in refining the basics and developing new strategies to work around secondhand and recycled materials.

Bibliography https://docs.google.com/document/d/10KiYzqWOyAAsFDJSiDNy4ZW_lu_FHYkGmYEjd4-Qem8/edit?usp=sharing

An Old Marriage: For my capstone I decided that I would write a book. To be more specific I decided to write a book that covers different aspects of how people receive and show love. The process of making this book has been nothing short of hours and hours of reading and interviews, with various people, on the personal experiences they have had in their lives; while also simultaneously reading dissertations written by human behaviorist and how they studied the brain, observing how interactions drive our minds especially in areas of connecting with people. While I have digged in the nooks and crannies trying to figure out the true definition of human relationships and how we experience love: I’ve come to find myself in my writing. Not only has writing this book helped me understand the people around me it has taught me a major lesson, “no one is looking at you but yourself, and it takes surrounding yourself with people who love you, no matter the circumstance; for you to realize that you are enough.”

Best, Mila Rosario

Sports and Media have been the essence of my four-year journey here at SLA. Having been raised in an environment where sports have consistently been the thread that brings us together, I’ve always been captivated by the impact sports can have in forming a community. As a Digital Video student, it was important to me to make my Senior Capstone reflective of this, thus I set out to plan, organize, and host Media Days for our athletes here at SLA. There were certainly some unforeseen challenges that arose, such as real-life situations where we had scheduling conflicts, miscommunication, and even personal struggles with managing time. Despite not being able to document every sport that I had initially set out to, I would never give up. Overall, the goal of this project was to ensure that my peers felt recognized and honored for their efforts. This Capstone allowed me to gain invaluable experience in accountability and professionalism when it comes to planning and executing projects. This project has taught me the critical nature of holding yourself accountable, even if there will be some bumps along the way.

Annotated Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d-mcaThLrYz84OcKzSaO6ItaEEuFUKl0EBfc1-Id9nI/edit?usp=sharing

For my capstone, I partnered with fellow senior Kade Cao to create a website, called College Compass, to help juniors and seniors with the college application and decision process. The website contains information about FAFSA and deadlines, resources like Xello, college myths, workshops, networking, advice and experiences from alumni, and much more. I also created a youtube channel for the post-secondary office that can be used by future CALs as another platform to share information with the SLA community.
While going through the college process myself, I realized how stressful and confusing it was. Though SLA provides numerous resources for students, it can be hard for everyone to be seen and for one person to handle all of the college needs of seniors and juniors. My goal for this project was to create a product that could be edited as things changed over time, but mainly provided additional support and information for students. I also wanted it to open students’ minds about what to consider and what other options are available to them. My portion of the capstone was to interview SLA alumni about their college application experience and how they’ve adjusted. In order to host productive and useful interviews I needed to do a lot of research about questions to ask, the differences in kinds of schools, and also research other post-secondary options. I ran into some trouble while trying to get in touch with alumni because many of them didn’t use their personal emails. However, I overcame this by finding alternative ways of getting in touch with them. One thing that I wish I did differently was include information about trade schools. I wasn’t able to get in touch with any alum who chose that path, but I included information about other options like schools abroad and gap years.
Through this project I gained a lot of helpful information for the transition to college that I’m about to make and also advice that I wish I had heard before going through the college process. I also gained a lot more confidence in my own voice and talking to people that I either don’t know or don’t know very well.

College Compass Website Link: https://vssyen.wixsite.com/college-compass

My annotated bibliography:

One of the problems I saw at Sla was the lost and found we have. As someone who loses everything that he owns, I need a place that I can be sure I can go to find my property. Our old lost and found was just a flimsy coat rack and a recycling bin; not only was it inefficient, but it also didn’t fit many clothes in it. Throughout my years at Sla, I have lost many things, from water bottles to sweaters to even coats, and because of that, I chose to fix this problem. Completing this capstone project was difficult. There were many challenges that I was forced to overcome, but by overcoming them, I was able to complete my capstone. Some of the steps I took to complete this project were first finding a good mentor. I personally found my mentor, who specializes in engineering, which was a big help in finishing my project. Something I did learn was how to figure out a solution when a problem appears.

Finished product:

Link to my Annotated Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nZotaKQ2S4pIVaev-hG57BvjgRok0o5fkspPymQD88s/edit?usp=sharing

For my Casptone, I painted the SLA core values on the stairwell. WHY? Well, I recently conducted a survey/interview with students at SLA from every grade, and I planned to get everyone’s opinions and quiz them about SLA. So I asked people if they knew the SLA core values, and I noticed everyone gave the same response: “I don’t know. “I’m not sure,” or them naming a couple, then give up. So I notice this is was a big problem because these values are what make our school what it is today, along with our community and it shapes our students’ lives here. Because of that, I wanted that to change while using art on my capstone, and so that’s how my project came about.

Throughout this process, I’ve been brainstorming about what I wanted to do, what the sketches of how I wanted it to be painted looked like, then tracing, executing, and bringing it to life. Throughout my process of making this happen, the biggest thing I learned was not to wait until the last minute. For instance, don’t start your capstone two months before it’s due. I say this because for me I thought my capstone wasn’t gonna take as long, but it was longer than I anticipated, so everything was kind of cramped in, and I would stay after school for 4 hours, then come home at 8 o’clock. Overall, what I learned was to manage my time better.

This Capstone project was undertaken with the goal of improving the engineering room as a place of learning. To accomplish this, three models were created for four air and spacecraft: a realistic model, an artistic model, and an educational model. The realistic models were designed in AutoCAD Fusion 360 and produced using a 3D printer. The artistic models were created as unique posters for each craft in Adobe Photoshop, and the educational models were presented as websites containing the history and functionality of each aircraft.

This project was selected due to the personal significance of the engineering room. More time was spent in Room 601 than any other room at SLA — not only for classes, but also for lunch, lab sessions, and after-school studying. As a result of this connection, the project was shaped by a desire to give back to the space and to Ms. Baruzzini, and to leave the room in a better state than it was found.

Link to site: https://sites.google.com/scienceleadership.org/milesbleicapstone/home

For my 2026 capstone, I hosted three workshops throughout the month of March through the creation of the SLA Art Lounge. The first workshop on March 10th was button making. Students had the opportunity to create as many buttons of their own design and creativity as they wanted. The second workshop on March 17th was bedazzling. Students brought their own personal items to bedazzle whether it was sunglasses, school chromebooks, lipstick, and much more! The third and final workshop hosted on March 24th was decoden! Students had access to charms, decoden cream, and objects that could be decorated on such as jars, trinket boxes, and picture frames! At the end of my workshops, every student kept their personalized and decorated items home to adorn their rooms, phones, and backpacks!

For my Senior Capstone project, I created and taught a mini course titled “Music and Performance 101” while also organizing a schoolwide showcase called “SLA Centerstage”. The purpose of my project was to highlight the importance of the arts at SLA and create opportunities for students to express themselves through music, dance, and live performance. Throughout the process, I developed lesson plans, created an Understanding by Design curriculum, organized rehearsals, recruited performers and volunteers, coordinated stage crew and lighting, and collaborated with mentors, students, and staff members to bring the showcase to life. In the mini course, students learned music fundamentals such as rhythm, chords, songwriting, piano, and guitar basics before forming bands and preparing performances for the final showcase.

Alongside the course, I organized additional elements including a dance team, cheerleader performances, a DJ, intermission activities, and a Senior Tribute section featuring a live musical medley and Senior Sign-Off video. Throughout the process, I faced challenges involving scheduling, communication, performer attendance, and last-minute changes, which taught me the importance of flexibility, organization, and leadership. Despite these obstacles, the showcase was highly successful and positively impacted students, staff, and administrators throughout the school community. Through this project, I learned valuable skills involving teaching, event planning, collaboration, communication, and adaptability. Most importantly, I was able to create a meaningful experience that celebrated creativity, strengthened the arts at SLA, and hopefully established a tradition that future students can continue for years to come.

Links to Videos and Pictures of both the Showcase and Mini Course: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zy3hYZSqpYzSUYKeHxx79BhYacJo14BY?usp=drive_link

Link to Annotated Bibliography: file:///Users/destinyharris/Downloads/Destiny’s%20Capstone.pdf

For my capstone, I wanted to figure out a way to incorporate student and teacher feedback into the systems we use for the internship search process at SLA. Throughout my time here, I’ve heard a lot of opinions about ImBlaze and experienced difficulty navigating it myself. While the idea for my capstone underwent many revisions based on feedback from teachers and mentors, the final product is a guidebook that anyone at SLA can access. This guidebook explains how to use the different features of ImBlaze and includes information on how to send an email to an organization or how to prepare for an interview. I worked with Johanna Weber on this project because we were trying to address the same issue; her individual project was centered around strengthening ImBlaze by giving it more data about different ILPs.

Through an extensive process of gathering feedback from students and teachers, conducting interviews, writing and rewriting surveys, and reading a ton about ImBlaze and the developers, we were able to submit this two-part project that incorporates the SLA core values and responds to the problems we had been seeing. Our final product is something that I’m extremely proud of, and it has taught me so much about time management and working with a team.

In my capstone, I created a podcast where I interviewed some of the SLA teachers so that students can get to know them better. With my process, I had to do a lot of research beforehand. I had to look up how to create a podcast, how to conduct a good interview, and how to make a really nice website. All of these things took practice and a while to learn. After that, I started to do the interviews with our teachers. I slowly started to edit and transcribe them one by one and made a total of 5 episodes. This part took me a while, but I wanted to do it as well as I could. With each episode, I had students from the lower classes listen and give me their feedback. My final product is a website that has a link to my youtube chanel I made, where I published all of the episodes. It also has a transcript and a small little summary to the episodes. What I have learned is obviously how to do podcasts, interviews, and make a website, but I also learned how much teachers care about students and are willing to do to make sure that they are comfortable in their class. I wanted to do that with this project, and I feel like I accomplished that. All of them talked about how much they care about the students, and it truly made me learn how much teachers care. Teachers Lounge

Annotated Bibliography

Hi, My name is Quincy Sullivan and my capstone was being a director of a live sports broadcast. As a student athlete, I can understand that not all family or friends are able to attend every sporting event. So, as my last capstone idea didn’t work, Me and Ms Roe worked to figure out a new idea and she has been saying she wanted to bring live sport broadcast to SLA. We worked more and more and chose that idea to be my capstone. After a long year, we were able to do live streams for Boys and Girls Basketball, Boy’s Ultimate Frisbee, and Boys Volleyball.

For my senior capstone, I created a website called Achieve. The purpose of this website is to help athletes who are struggling with mental health or just need a little help and guidance to achieve their goals. They have inspirational quotes on the front page, then a journaling setting in the second tab, in the third tab their is an XP unlocking feature, and for my final tab, it’s a tab that helps you make up a plan to achieve a goal. If you feel confused or aren’t sure where to begin, this tab creates checkpoints to help you start on the goal. The process of making this website began by finding a problem and creating something to help solve it. Once I settled on it, I started researching quotes, what helped athletes the most, and why mental health is one of the most common issues for athletes’ downfall. Once I completed all the research part, I shifted to learning how to code and searched for videos on how to code. After getting a good understanding of how to code, I started the rough draft of the website and asked my peers, teachers, and mentor for feedback. After receiving all the feedback, I made sure to incorporate all the feedback into my new and polished website.

For my capstone I worked closely with my peer Isabel Robinson and my mentor Ms. Mack. The college application process is a long, dreadful process that at most of the time feels completely chaotic and unorganized. While SLA has a lot of resources, sometimes everything can still feel scattered. So we created College Compass. An online site that has all the resources a college applicant needs. From resources for research, FAFSA, college myths, how to choose a college, advice from seniors and most importantly our interviews.

Here is the link to my Capstone:https://vssyen.wixsite.com/college-compass

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16HhjrhJLA0sS0q30f_Yc3m1IP5ymPfRZ-6LGmfgjSd0/edit?tab=t.0

In my capstone I thought about a issue that is not spoken about enough and that is the help that someone dealing with homelessness. Sometimes its hard for people to find programs that they trust and are willing to reach out to and I understand that sometime. You dont know where to find help but that is what I made my projects main focus was tomake a website for people to find resources in the city that are known and trusted and proven to help . I feel like it is not fair for people to not have the proper help they need everyone desrves a chance to be something great in life but at time people just need a jumpstart and with these programs you are able to achcive great things if you are dealing with harship.

Link: https://sites.google.com/scienceleadership.org/giveachance/home?authuser=0og

Nearly every baseball player who plays the catcher position experiences some sort of knee pain before they even step foot on a high school diamond. Many are unable to even get to high school while playing the position full-time. Catchers are lucky to get through all four years without some sort of physical therapy, extensive time off, or, oftentimes, complete knee surgeries. I am a catcher who, like many others, has faced severe knee pain in both legs before the age of 18. The common short-term solution is to invest in a knee brace. However, knee braces are expensive and rarely work comfortably in an active setting. This is why I chose to take on the challenge of creating a personal brace that fits all of my needs in a cost-effective manner. This project took months of research to understand a multitude of extremely complex anatomical and mechanical systems. Because of this knowledge, the design phase of this project went fairly quickly, from initial sketches to digital drawings and finally to fabric stencils. However, the production element was less smooth. Things kept breaking, which meant I had to use alternative, less time-efficient methods. For instance, I was forced to sew the entire brace by hand. Through the setbacks, I am extremely happy with my final product. I achieved everything I wanted to achieve with the brace. I also filmed my entire process and produced it into a YouTube-style video for public enjoyment or anyone who feels hopeless, facing similar circumstances.

https://youtu.be/8qWvV7-Ew24

For my capstone project I taught a mini-course to freshmen at SLA about basic bicycle maintenance skills. We met once weekly for a total of seven classes, and over the duration of the course the students learned everything from the names of individual bike parts, to doing mechanical repairs or maintenance on complete bikes with industry tools. Each student is now capable of doing any basic maintenance they could need at home, like fixing flat tires, installing brake pads, or tuning their shifting.

I chose this project because it made valuable use of one of my most developed skillsets. I am very passionate about bikes - I donate kids bikes in my neighbourhood, I fix those bikes for free, and I’ve turned bikes into a means of entrepreneurship for myself selling and repairing bikes. To me, being able to help these students become more confident working on their bikes is an important part of continuing to use my abilities to help my community.

Example of lesson slideshow and pictures of demo-frames shown above.

See my Annotated Bibliography here - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MbPHnKCZSaiJzPaFViC6rMdwzfERfaWRRypNDX6keSg/edit?usp=sharing

This capstone project is a sculptural flower box constructed entirely from discarded materials collected within SLA’s own building. The project began with the placement of four repurposed trash cans, sourced for free from Facebook Marketplace, in four high-traffic locations throughout the school: the art room, the engineering room, the main office, and the Commons. Each bin was labeled with a brief introduction explaining the project’s purpose and inviting students and staff to donate their disposables rather than throw them away. Over several months, materials were collected from these bins every two to three days. Donations ranged from colorful paper scraps, paint tubes, and stickers from the art room, to graph paper, wooden sticks, and screws from the engineering room, to printer boxes and mechanical parts from the office. Once collecting was complete, all materials were laid out and evaluated before construction began. Using online tutorials alongside personal creative instinct, the materials were transformed into an abstract sculptural flower box. A printer box from the main office served as the base, painted and shaped into a clean white planter. From there, flowers and decorative elements were built piece by piece from donated scraps, each component reimagined into something entirely new. At its core, this project is a statement about consumerism and waste. It challenges the idea that disposed items are without value, arguing that with creativity and intention, trash can become art. Because the materials came exclusively from within SLA, the piece directly reflects the consumption habits of the school community, making it both personal and communal.

My SLA senior capstone project is a field guide to the shorebirds of the New Jersey shore. My guide, titled “Down the Shorebirds”, includes the 12 most common Sandpipers, Plovers, and Oystercatchers found on the shore with a focus on their conservation and threats to their populations. The goal in making this guide was to promote interest, in casual or fist time birdwatchers, in conservation and bring awareness to the imminent threat faced by coastline dependent species. My book will be distributed in the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Birding Backpacks as well as at SLA and the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Throughout the project I learned not only about the birds I was studying but also how to pace myself when writing a research heavy, and relatively long, piece of writing.

Down the Shorebirds Field Guide

For my capstone for the year, I built bird homes. It was a way to not only give the sidewalk of SLA a small touch of decoration but also to try and help build a better environment for the animals as well. My motive for this capstone arose when I first noticed that there were many bird carcasses on the ground, and it was an upsetting sight to see coming to and from school. So I began thinking of ways to help find a solution. This project was fun to do, and it was fun working with my local and school communities, and I got to learn more about how to use certain tools, thanks to my mentor. I also learned more about the materials needed for my projects and how to incorporate safety in almost everything I did. There were obstacles throughout this process that made it difficult at times to meet the self-made checkpoints, and I learned that it is crucial to be prepared for everything or to at least be mentally prepared to think clearly on how to overcome the challenges. Thankfully, I had a lot of support to be able to push through those obstacles and was able to create something that I am proud of. And while from an outside perspective it may have been something simple to do, for me it was a way to immerse myself and expand my knowledge on something I would like to do again. 

(Bibliography below image)

For my capstone, I worked with Josh to build and test an open-source off-grid communication system. We call this system Ski Net. It is based on an ESP32 board called a Heltec V3 and V4. We created this system as a replacement or an addition to any skier, outdoorsman, hunter, fisherman, or first responder’s personal carry. It allows users to communicate with a network of other users completely independent of any preexisting infrastructure. It doesn’t need internet, cell service, or satellite to communicate; the device does every aspect of the end-to-end encrypted communication. So for people who are outdoors, like hunters or skiers, it lets them talk and send their location when they have no cell service. However, for the first responders, it allows them to establish a critical communication infrastructure in a worst-case scenario when that preexisting network has been knocked out due to a natural disaster.

For my Capstone project, I decided to create a webcomic that aims to explain my time in SLA via art and writing about it. I wanted to be able to create something that was shown by art but had struggled to find a way to express it, originally by a mural, making drawings that would be in place of the mural, and then the final product of the Webcomic. A lot of it took time, it was pretty tedious in figuring out how to make the pages, and what to really say as it was being created. I found it somewhat difficult to find the time to handle it alongside the obvious assignments and other challenges of school, where eventually things began to piece together. I made this to not only explain the process of high school for me and how despite its difficulties it wasn’t as bad, but also as a thanks to all the SLA staff who have supported and helped me get through high school and to my eventual graduation. I wanted to show my gratitude and appreciation of SLA in the form of this webcomic, and to also tell other students either starting high school at SLA, or approaching graduation and becoming seniors that there may be a lot of difficulties, but the staff here truly do want to do what they can to help you succeed and get through it all. I hope that this final webcomic aims to help people out and to at least tell people that the high school process isn’t gonna be as bad, especially going to a school like SLA.

link to the webcomic!

bibliography

Hi. I developed an iOS app that helps people capture life’s smallest, fleeting moments. I believe though social media may have a positive impact like creating curated content or learning something new, it has negatively impacted most Gen Zs and even me. Addiction, comparison, FOMO, our opinions constantly changing, being un-present, the need to fit in, external validation, …

I hope that my app limits people off of social media and help them start to value the small moments of their lives. A calm walk in the park after an intense gym session, an awkward but interesting conversation with a stranger, noticing a beautiful view you’d usually pass by, playing one part of a song you couldn’t with your guitar before, or a genuine 1-1 conversation with a close friend talking about their futures.

Maybe it really wasn’t about the big things. It wasn’t about the parties, following social media trends, or pretending like you had everything figured out.

My app’s main core feature is capturing a moment. When you capture a moment, you can type specifically what the moment was, journal upon it, add your emotions (how you felt), the people you were with, the location, and photos and videos. Alongside, you can view your moments in a timeline or calendar, and organize it into albums. Simple and boring, but that’s the point.

So for those who love to journal, be introspective about themselves, grow as a person, or struggle with getting off of social media, feel free to use my app.

For my capstone I designed and created a storage shelf for the weight room at my school. I chose this project because I am intending to major in architecture in college. I wanted to do something related to design, where I got to work in Vectorworks (a computer software for drafting), in order to give myself some extra practice with the program before I go off into the real world and am required to use it in my field. Since freshman year I have been a part of the athletics at SLA. I knew going into my senior year that I wanted my capstone to integrate not only my love for creating, but for sports as well. I started off by being curious about woodworking and ended up with a final fully standing piece of furniture that I could not be more proud of. I had to utilize every core value to satisfy my curiosity and complete something not only functional but beautiful as well.

Annotated Bibliography: