I chose to do my capstone on How to Be an SLA Office Assistant. I have been doing office work around the SLA office since my sophomore year. My new class this year was community service, and with the experience I already have of being in the office, because it used to be my internship, therefore I learned a lot these past 3 years of being an office assistant. As an office assistant, making a good, welcoming environment is key to the students and staff/teachers. You wouldn’t want to be uncomfortable in your own home. Right?. I will never change my personality or how I carry myself for nothing or no one because that’s me, always has been, and always will be, but that doesn’t mean I can’t fix some flaws I have. After each year at SLA, I have gotten tame, communicate more, but still could be better, gained a lot of friendships that come with a lot of support that really helped me keep going. SLA gave me hope. Leaving this last year, I know I can be more than what I am or what I’ve been told I am. I’m proving that by completing this capstone, passing my classes, not getting into any trouble lately, and getting into Workshop U with a plan after high school, and then when I finally walk across the stage, hearing my name, Jacey Butler, as I get that diploma. That will prove the haters wrong. Clock That Tea.

My Artifacts

I chose to do my capstone on How to Be an SLA Office Assistant. I have been doing office work around the SLA office since my sophomore year. My new class this year was community service, with that and the experience I already have of being in the office, because it used to be my internship, therefore, I learned a lot these past 3 years of being an office assistant. As an office assistant, creating a welcoming environment is key for students and staff/teachers. You wouldn’t want to be uncomfortable in your own home. Right? I love doing my office work. If it were something I didn’t wanna do, then I wouldn’t have done it. Nothing but the truth. When starting my capstone, it was supposed to be a book with 10 chapters, which is my manual. I don’t really like to type at all. I wrote my chapters down in my book first, transferred that onto a Google Doc, finally printed the chapters out, and then put them in order in a binder.

I interviewed three Local Leaders in different fields to gain multiple perspectives. Especially their personal experiences and perspective on Leadership as a whole, and the specific differences within each field. The first person I interviewed was Chris Lehmann, who gave an interesting perspective on Leadership because he is a former teacher who is now the CEO and Principal of Science Leadership Academy (SLA). A key point of his interview was discussing servant leadership. This project idea actually stems from a conversation I had with my dad, where he and I discussed the importance of young people building and mending relationships, especially with those who are in places and spaces they want to be. Some of the best perks of being a young person are the immense potential, so I thought about what would happen if a young person is connected with an adult who is in their dream or preferred career options. They would build a valuable relationship, see how that person operates in their specific career and how it affects their lifestyle, and get a full picture of what it would be like to pursue that career. My capstone project most definitely incorporates the SLA core values almost perfectly. First, it took an immense amount of time and energy to reach out to people that I have a connection, and it is even harder to branch out in order to get new connections.

This Capstone is an encapsulation of the SLA art community, along with the importance of creativity and art in a school setting. The goal of this project is to allow people who have an interest in SLA to see how the school functions as a community and how art plays a major role in the academics at SLA. The final product is a website that allowes anybody to see the ways that students are able to express their creativity through art and art-based creations. My hope is that this website can answer questions that future SLA students may have about what SLA is truly like as a high school and how creativity is often prioritized.

https://sites.google.com/scienceleadership.org/slaartcommunity?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/16aG07BSIGdBEJJSFGUIqwD67k7w1C1TNW1Tpzfn9EQA/edit?usp=sharing

For my capstone I decided to work with a young and inexperienced thoroughbred horse named Rakia who is one of the horses owned by Northwestern Stables. Rakia is a four year old gelding who previously wasn’t being worked with frequently which resulted in a lack of exercise. A lack of exercise and activeness in horses has the potential to lead to health complications and behavioral issues, so my goal was to provide a higher quality of life for him. I chose to do this for my capstone because of my passion for horses as well as my many years of experience as an equestrian, so this was an exciting opportunity to do something I love while making a positive impact on my community!

The process involved many training sessions where I had Rakia practice exercises to improve his ground manners and behavior. My goal was to have him become more tuned into his body and the space he takes up, as well as getting him to have more respect for my space as his handler. The final event of my capstone involved my participation with Rakia in Northwestern Stables’ annual spring horse show on May 17th. We competed in the Grooming and Showmanship class where the significant improvements to Rakia’s movement, attentiveness, and condition as a whole were demonstrated at the walk and trot. In the end, our efforts won the two us won a fourth place ribbon in the class! Overall, my capstone really helped me understand how important consistency is to progression, and how even small victories can prove to be very rewarding.

For my capstone project, I created a fitness and exercise education website focused on helping people better understand workout training, exercise selection, and the anatomy behind human movement. I combined personal interest in strength training with research into exercise science, muscle anatomy, and workout programming. Throughout the process, I designed multiple sections of the website, including an anatomy tab explaining major muscle groups and movement patterns, an at-home workout section for accessible training with minimal equipment, and a gym exercise library containing descriptions, targeted muscle groups, and recommended set and rep ranges for exercises. I researched reliable fitness and anatomy sources to ensure the information was accurate and educational while also organizing the website in a way that would be easy for users to navigate. Through this project, I learned more about web design and how difficult it can be for new users. I also gained a deeper understanding of how anatomy connects directly to exercise performance, injury prevention, and workout effectiveness. Overall, this project allowed me to use science, health, and education as a resource designed to make fitness knowledge more understandable and accessible for others.

https://sites.google.com/view/intro-to-exercise/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 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

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 capstone is 12 handmade stuffed animals based on fourth grader’s drawings from Waring Elementary School. I taught a 30 minute art class with activities. The activity included three sections where students were asked to draw animals native to PA for 30 seconds, 3 minutes, and 10 minutes. I decided on this activity because a lot of these kids have trouble focusing and I wanted them to be able to engage. After the presentation I hand-sewed stuffed animals that each included unique colors, hair, eyes, and mouths. This project took months to complete and was extremely challenging. I worked countless hours on sewing the main shapes in the drawings, limbs, and eyes/other features. This capstone took lots of time and effort to complete.

Annotated Bibliography:

“Stuffed Animal Sewing Patterns: Squishy-Cute DesignsHow to Do the Ladder Stitch | Hidden Stitch | Squishy-Cute.” Squishycutedesigns.com, 2024, www.squishycutedesigns.com/ladder-stitch/.

This source is a journal style website. It contains different types of hand sewn stitches such as: The ladder stitch (for attaching or closing an opening), the backstitch (for line stitching details), and the whipstitch (for sewing the sides of the fabric). I will use all of these techniques for my different types of stuffed animals depending on their design. I will use the whipstitch for all of my pieces because it is the best stitch to use to make the seams secure on a stuffed animal. Other stitches are optional like the backstitch which is for extra details that may or may not be in the kids drawings.

“6 Tips for Effective School Visits.” Open-Book.ca, 2022, open-book.ca/Columnists/6-Tips-for-Effective-School-Visits. Accessed 18 Feb. 2026.

This source is highly valuable to me. It is stock full with resources on how to present to kids depending on their grade using scientific research. They give advice to do small hands on examples of what you’re trying to teach, short tasks (not ones that take the entire period) and to ask their teacher what tasks/topics are challenging for the students. Other tips include waiting to answer questions till the end, and leading with an example activity and then letting them do it with my supervision. This source is an educational resource for teachers, scientists, or other presenters that teach students short term lessons.

VanDerMolen, Mariana. “6 Fantastic One-Day Art Lessons to Engage Your Elementary Students.” The Art of Education, 24 Jan. 2024, theartofeducation.edu/2024/01/jan-6-fantastic-one-day-art-lessons-to-engage-your-elementary-students/.

Though this source is less formal, it is definitely valuable. Since I need the kids to create something fast but authentic so I can recreate it this source gives me some tips. A few of the tips are to give multiple different options for sensory art tools to use like googly eyes, cut out pieces of paper, and other 3D features. Borsellino, Regina. “How to Write an Email That Gets the Results You Want.” The Muse, 3 Feb. 2021, www.themuse.com/advice/how-to-write-professional-email-examples. This source was sort of a “just because” source to mainly help with my anxiety to email. For my capstone I have to reach out to a school’s principal and ask for permission to teach an art class. I want to make sure I can sound trustworthy and serious in my email to them. This source gives tips on the basic format as well as other tips like whether it is the appropriate format to discuss my topic or if I need to request an in-person meeting.

“Hand Embroidery for Beginners - Back Stitch Tutorial.” Www.youtube.com, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkXhtkO0zK0.

This youtube video is a great source to clear up some confusion I have with the backstitch. I know how to do two stitches, one proficient. This slow, clear, and easy resource allows me to better understand how to do the backstitch. Since this resource is less than a minute long and only shows one stitch this resource was just for my confusion.

“How to Sew the Ladder Stitch”, 2026, youtu.be/XOIywYsDT-c?si=ZxSMg-Frzq_kFZ96. Accessed 18 Feb. 2026. This source was also used to teach me one of the more complicated stitches more clearly. This is also known as the invisible stitch which can be difficult to do. This is the number one stitch used by seamstresses and toy makers to design hidden strings in clothes and stuffed animals. This stitch will allow for a more concise look as well as a nicer finished look.

Youtu.be, 2026, youtu.be/oC2eKmtpAKg?si=D8DgeUb-kXZ7at5B. Accessed 18 Feb. 2026. This youtube video looks as close as possible to how professional I hope my final product will be. Of course because of my limited supplies I won’t be able to achieve this exact look, but if I can achieve something slightly as clean I’ll be happy. Though this video is more challenging to understand it also helps for just the motivation for my final products.

Youtu.be, 2026, youtu.be/mhck8T249lU?si=CFdMVJPyqInPQ6Cv. Accessed 18 Feb. 2026. Another issue I’ve run into is safety eyes and noses. These are small plastic screw-like sewing supplies that are seen on plushies for eyes and noses. In the past I’ve struggled to not tear the fabric, have them fall out, or keep them even. This video shed light on those issues pretty straightforwardly.

Mason, Barbara. “5 Strategies for Teaching Art in the Classroom.” Golden Road Arts, 12 Mar. 2024, www.goldenroadarts.org/art-resources/5-strategies-teaching-art-classroom/.

This source was less professional than I had hoped for but ended up providing lots of useful information. This article gives tips for long term teachers instead of visiting school teachers. A few that stuck with me were: make sure to make the lesson about the students and not just focus on getting it done. A lot of the time I struggle to “naturally” present presentations and not sound robotic. This article reminded me to definitely practice before presenting.

“How to Make Stuffed Animals More Sensory for Kids - Google Search.” Google.com, 2024, www.google.com/search?q=how+to+make+stuffed+animals+more+senspry+for+kids&rlz=1CAKLUN_enUS1112&oq=how+to+make+stuffed+animals+more+senspry+for+kids&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOdIBCTIzMjE3ajBqN6gCALACAA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&safe=active&ssui=on. Accessed 18 Feb. 2026. This source is especially important to the goal of my project. Sensory details are important to me for these stuffed animals. Developing minds require lots of sensory input to process information, change, and emotions. This source suggest varying soft textures, adding weight, and consistency.