I created three songs revolving around the theme of time. The first song, titled “We’ve Still Got Time” is about being in the last year of high school, and how it feels like time is moving quickly. It’s about the emotions that come with knowing that all things come to an end. The melancholy feelings of change come through in the lyrics and chord progressions. It is more traditional because I recorded guitar (electric and acoustic), drums, and vocals. The second two songs are tied together in an EP titled “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.” They are completely made up of found sounds from my life that I recorded on a handheld microphone. I took these sounds, like trucks, car honks, city soundscapes, and manipulated them to sound musical. Each recording captures a moment in time, each sound is different from the next, unable to be replicated exactly the same way. These instrumental songs utilize everyday songs to bring the listener into new worlds of sound.

Career day was an afternoon of career exploration for SLA freshmen that exposed them to a variety of paths they could take in the future. In the beginning of the year, I polled the students on their career interests, and I found out that about 50% of 9th graders are interested in a career in STEM. This informed my decision to have a special focus on STEM careers for my project. Next, I reached out to professionals asking them to speak at the event, and coordinated logistics with SLA staff. I got permissions to use 6 classrooms, and talked with Mr. Lehmann and the 9th grade advisors to have them chaperone their advisories in each room. As I confirmed the availability of volunteer speakers and began to make a schedule, I realized I couldn’t run career day by myself, so I gathered some student volunteers to be ushers. Additionally, I had a couple students taking videos and pictures that I later uploaded to the career day website. With everyone’s help, career day was a huge success. All the volunteers and advisors reported that it was a positive experience, and the students mentioned lots of new things they’d learned in their reflections. My biggest takeaways from career day were to always be prepared, have backup plans, and expect the unexpected. Getting to see my project come to life was really rewarding, and I hope someone is inspired to iterate on career day in the future.

Digital representation: career day website https://sites.google.com/scienceleadership.org/careerdaycapstone23-24/home

Music is a form of expression where people can share stories and personify their culture without interference. Representing one’s soul and what makes them, them; at least that’s how I see it. With over 1566 hours of listening last year, it’s clear that music is a big part of my life. For my capstone, I wanted to emulate my music while also showcasing the CTE engineering skills that I’ve fine-tuned over my years at SLA. I ran through a couple of ways to showcase my ideas, and the way that seemed most challenging and hands-on was building an instrument. The next step was constructing a question that demonstrated the importance of this project: how does music bring people together?

Annotated Bibliography: https://docs.google.com/document/d/13yMFAN0i-xjVBYF9NVBs51GoD47xMALAe3SxDsx4PKM/edit?usp=sharing

For my capstone, I wanted to learn about the industry behind environmental science, while also giving back something to the place that helped me. This resulted in me creating a birdhouse for The Discovery Center at the Audubon of Philadelphia to create a home for the birds that migrate through their premises. While working at the Audubon I got to do several things, some of which included working the front desk, making the trail safe to travel, and shadowing an interview process for someone looking to work at the Audubon. This process taught me a lot about not only the environmental science business but also time management skills and working past/around the several roadblocks in my way. I also learned more building and engineering skills, especially skills that would be useful for doing things in my future.

The first link provided is my presentation which shows my work, and the second link is to my annotated bibliography which shows some sources I used/intended to use throughout my capstone process.