Students enrolled in a capstone course wrapped up their projects with their final presentations from May 22 through May 26. In addition to this final presentation, students who took on a capstone project participated in a showcase on June 1, showing off their projects to students, faculty, staff and family in the library.

Capstone is a program offered to both juniors and seniors where they choose a topic that interests them and design a project that allows them to research, interview and go in depth on that topic and conclude all of their learning in a final paper and presentation. Over 100 students took part in this program this year.

“I don’t think expectations have changed much over the past two years I have been teaching capstone. I think it’s a journey getting to this point because so much of our capstone is student-directed. We have just seen so many different projects compared to what we have seen last year, so the outcomes and final presentations will all be different this year,” English teacher and capstone advisor Russ Crist said.

Prior to being scheduled to present about their project, capstone students also needed to write a final paper summing up what their project was and what they had learned in order to get a general idea of what they want to talk about during the presentation itself.

During this final presentation, each student presented on what their project was, what they have learned, how capstone has allowed them to grow personally and professionally and how it has impacted what they want to do in their future. Each presentation is approximately 15 to 20 minutes in length and are scored by two teachers. In addition, some are videotaped for future reference if needed.

“I wanted my presentation to be fun and interactive since most presentations I’ve seen were quite monotonous. So I went through my final paper, since that’s what I’m basing my presentation around, and found a few places I could ask the audience questions to get them to participate,” senior Cameron Glynn said.

Capstone students have the opportunity to invite friends, teachers and family, and each presenter should have had a minimum of five attendees watching their presentation.

Students prepared for these presentations by working on and practicing with their classmates to become comfortable talking about their topic as well as preparing for the question and answer session that comes after their presentations.

“A few weeks before the presentations, Mr. [Andrew] Marshall came in to talk to our class about how to make better presentations that would allow us to engage the audience for the 20 minutes of our presentation and to get our whole year’s worth of work into that time,” senior Hunter Caouette said.

Following the final presentations, students also participated in a final showcase exhibition on June 1 where students had the opportunity to display their work in the library during lunch waves to show other students, faculty, staff and family who may not have known much about their project.

“I think [the exhibition] is a really important part of the process because it makes their learning public. I think when you do that, it adds a whole new level of expectations, aside from their peers and teachers, but others in the community and other teachers and staff, and I think it makes students take even more pride in what they do,” Crist said.

86 different presentations were available to anyone who attended who were interested in seeing what capstone students engaged themselves in this year. Some made posters and others set up displays for others to look at.

At the end of the day, after all exhibitions were cleaned up, capstone students who successfully met all of the requirements of capstone were invited to attend a cording ceremony where they earned a cord to wear during graduation.

“I was excited for the cording ceremony because it’s symbolic of all the work we have put in throughout this year to finish our project, and it represented our successes during the course of my senior year, despite problems that came along the way,” Caouette said.