|
|||||||||
Academics
|
Academics
Honors Program Capstone Projects - 2009 Kelly Barna - Environmental Studies for the Web
For her capstone project, senior Kelly Barna drew on her passion for the environment to develop a website devoted to environmental studies. With expertise developed in the AP Environmental Science course, Kelly read, summarized and critiqued over 20 environment-related articles. She compiled her observations in the form of blog entries on her site, called Kelly Green. Kelly’s goal is to encourage students to visit the site to learn something new about the emerging “go-green” era in American society, and then to become involved in making MFS an eco-friendly community. Why is environmental awareness important? What can we as ordinary people and students do to take a stand and make a difference? These questions and others are answered on Kelly’s website. For her senior Capstone Project, Orysia Bezpalko drew on her interest in the life sciences to create an online resource called bioLOGIC. It’s an easy-to-use and credible resource for students working on research papers in the fields of biology, anatomy and physiology, and general science. In her years in Upper School science classes, Orysia has identified a real need for this kind resource: sites such as Wikipedia aren’t always legitimate or trustworthy, while other science websites are often difficult to understand or sometimes not even credible. bioLOGIC brings together a varied group of web resources for students. And by providing a place for posting student papers and projects, the site will be a useful reference tool, both for information and also for help with citations and formatting. Christina Cabrera - Health Fairs for Kids by Kids For her Honors Program capstone project, senior Cristina Cabrera organized a Health Fair run by adolescents for elementary school children. Her goal was to affect positive change in both age groups in terms of understanding healthy lifestyles. Adolescents will have had the opportunity to improve their comprehension of health issues and their ability to mentor young children. The children formed helpful bonds with older students while also learning about healthy lifestyle choices. Cristina conducted the Health Fair twice in order to improve results and reach different audiences: there was a trial run at the school's Science and Enginnering Expo April for MFS Lower School students; and a second session at the New Jersey ElementarySchool Science Olympiad held at MFS in May. To determine whether the Health Fair improved nutritional and physical health practices, Cristina compared the results of surveys given to Upper School participants (those running the activities) at the two activities. Tyler Catanella - Serpentine Hill Tyler Catanella has been active in the performing arts his whole life, and in theatre for twelve years. He has performed in musical, classical, and contemporary plays, with a diverse resume of leading roles in productions such as Cabaret (The Emcee), Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (The Player), High School Musical (Ryan), and The Tempest (Caliban). He also attended the New Jersey Governor’s School for the Arts in 2008 as one of twelve theatre scholars selected. After performing many times on the stage, Tyler decided to explore theatre from the perspective of a playwright and a director. He has created Serpentine Hill for his English/Theatre honors program concentration. Serpentine Hill is a modern-day adaptation of four of Edgar Allan Poe’s most well-known tales (The Tell-Tale Heart, The System of Doctor Tarr & Professor Fether, The Fall of the House of Usher, and The Masque of the Red Death). The play intertwines the stories and the language of Poe into one contemporary piece of theatre, all taking place in one mysterious area -- Serpentine Hill. Russell Hensley - Robotics MiniTech Challenge For his capstone project, Russell Hensley is designing and organizing a middle school robotics competition, the “MiniTech Challenge.” Russell has competed on the MFS Upper School robotics teams for the past two years, both years advancing to the First Tech Challenge World Championship event in Atlanta. The purpose of this project is to give middle school students an opportunity to learn about science and technology while having fun competing. The MiniTech Challenge involves LEGO’s NXT robotics system, with which some of the middle school participants are familiar. The competition also includes elements of the high school competition by allowing teams to remotely control their robots with video game controllers. Teams are tasked with designing, building, and operating a robot to traverse a course and to move and pick up wiffle balls faster than opponents. Participating teams are made up of students from three schools: Moorestown Friends School, KIPP Freedom Academy in Camden, and Blankenburg Middle School in Northeast Philadelphia. Teams have been designing and building their robots over the past two months and competed in the official MiniTech Challenge on May 16 in the West Building Gymnasium. Hannah Levy - Filmmaking at MFS Senior Hannah Levy has always been interested in storytelling in all of its forms, and she developed that interest in the Honors Program with her concentration in Media/English Publications. Throughout high school, she focused on writing with minors--Journalism and Images--and majors--Creative Writing and AP English. This past summer, she channeled her liking of storytelling into a more media-related avenue: filmmaking. For her senior capstone project, Hannah has decided to use the basic skills she gained from her summer course and write, direct, and edit a short film. She has spent many hours writing and discovering the logistical puzzle that is filmmaking. Trial and error and flexibility have proved the keystones of her endeavor; she scrapped one script and moved on to a second. Her end result is a five-minute short that explores the different paths forged by a single decision, starring seniors Hal Bozarth, Tyler Catanella, and Jen Donato. The movie was screened during the Cabaret portion of Senior Play on May 29 and 30.
Rebecca Salowe - Producing the Podcast "Science Among Friends" “Podcasting -- a relatively new way of learning information about a variety of topics -- is not generally used by high school students,” says senior Rebecca Salowe. “This causes them to miss out on an easy way to learn about new topics and hear other people's opinions.” For her Capstone Project, Becca produced the “Science Among Friends” podcast and ran a website of student blogs. The Bio-Nutrition class was responsible for writing over 40 podcasts and blogs. All the files have been merged and uploaded onto iTunes. Becca encouraged further student involvement by creating a blog for the podcasts. Her five blog articles (on subjects such as childhood obesity, science writing, and adolescent nutrition) appear alongside her “From the Producer’s Desk” feature on the site. She hopes that her project will raise student interest in learning outside the classroom, using the relatively new mediums of podcasts and blogs. By exploring current issues in science, her project provides a deeper understanding of the importance of science, the value of critical thinking, and the power of writing in navigating a healthy and happy life. Hannah Spielberg - Racial and Economic Disparities in the U.S. Incarceration System Senior Hannah Spielberg became interested in racial and economic disparities in the United States incarceration system while working on a History research paper last year. For the Capstone Project of her Honors Program, Hannah worked to raise awareness about the Cradle to Prison Pipeline, a project of the Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) targeted at interrupting the social trajectory that leads disadvantaged youth toward incarceration. Hannah’s project has two components:
Senior Capstone Projects - 2009 Matt Purcell - Computer Engineering and Technology Comes to Life Matt Purcell has been active at MFS in many different areas of the school: Meeting for Worhsip Business (student government) Clerk, co-organizer for the Roller Hockey team, member of both Honor and Agenda Committees, and student Tech Director for Upper School shows. But did you know that he also worked on a Senior Capstone Project in computer technology? As an offshoot of his independent major, Computer Engineering and Technology, Matt constructed a fully operational touch screen tablet. The hardware part of the tablet consists of a constructed wooden case, webcam, tape, and fiberglass. The device runs on software designed and written by Matt. One program consists of a touch screen piano, where users can play the notes on an electronic keyboard using their fingers. Another program allows users to select, move and organize photos on the screen, similar to the technology found on the iPhone. A third program creates a game similar to Pong. Matt faced a variety of challenges in this project, e.g., procuring the necessary technical materials, and learned a good deal about real-world design and engineering. This experience will serve him well as he moves on to a major in Industrial Engineering and Business at Rochester Institute of Technology.
|
||||||||
 |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
110 E. Main Street Moorestown, NJ 08057-2949 Phone: (856) 235-2900 |
|