Capstone Project Takes Leads To In Depth Learning And Communicating

photo by Cookie Step Gathered just before the Capstone Project presentations began, some members of 8th grade Team Endeavor smiled for the camera. ( L-R) A. MacKinnon, E. Brouillard, V. Provencher, A. Chamberlain, K. Williams, A. Gardner, I. Brons, H. Cauchon, G. Grady and C. Austin are ready to go after weeks of work!

For seventy 8th graders, Friday April 7th was D-Day. It was the culmination of seven weeks of research, endless drafts of a thesis paper, multiple modifications to a tangible product and google slide presentation and the time to finally present all of that work to an audience including parents, family, students and community members. Jokingly called Demonstration Day, it was a time for nerves to be calmed and a new skill set to be presented.  Beginning at 9:30 in the morning in seven different classrooms in the school, students made 20-30 minute formal presentations and responded to questions about their research and results in what is called Capstone Projects. Originally designed to demonstrate the skills necessary for advancing into high school, Capstone allows students to choose a topic to research and then they are guided through it by Capstone advisors in the areas of research, note taking, organization, creating a thesis statement, referencing and citing textual evidence to support their own original statement. With countless drafts, peer edits, faculty corrections and student revisions, the products displayed on Demonstration Day or Capstone represented the focus of a community of people and literally hundreds of hours of work on the part of the student.
    “I chose nuclear power for my research,” remarked Ian Brons, “because it was not only relevant to me but interesting. There were many misconceptions about it in the media and I wanted to understand not only how it worked, but the pros and cons that people take up when debating it.”  Aidan Gardner shared with his Capstone audience, “This is not the first time that America has closed its borders to refugees and with the current debate around 41 states refusing to admit Syrian refugees, this topic intrigued me not only for the controversy, but for the history behind it and the irony of America being settled by refugees from nations around the world.” Other topics included recycling, space debris, the Big Bang Theory, the role of Hip Hop Culture, alternative education, the legalization of marijuana in Vermont, making psychology a mandatory high school class, the danger of Selfies, ocean pollution and literally dozens more.  Also visiting the classrooms were high school students and the rising 8th graders who will next year take on their own Capstone challenge. “It was a pleasure to watch the Capstone projects,” shared principal Stephanie Taylor.  And at the end of the day, learning reigned supreme and communicating it was the skill set that everyone got a little better at!