SENIOR PROJECT SENIORS PURSUE THEIR PASSIONS Spring 2012 What makes an effective skyscraper? What are the elements of H.P. Lovecraft’s works that make them significant? How has reggae music evolved in the past 40 years? What makes a dog treat both nutritious and pleasing to dogs? What puts home computer users’ privacy at risk? These are just a handful of the questions explored during Senior Project presentations in May, the culmination of a yearlong independent project completed by all seniors.
Senior Project is a capstone to students’ learning at Innovation Academy. “It
offers students an opportunity to explore
in depth a subject that they are passionate
about while also offering them an opportunity to apply the skills they have developed throughout their high school careers
in terms of research, writing, application,
and presentation,” says Shannon Morocco,
a high school history teacher and the coordinator for Senior Project.
Students begin their senior year by
identifying a topic they are interested
in learning more about and developing
a central question that will guide their
independent research. Students then need
to find an expert to work with—someone
who is knowledgeable about the topic they
are studying and who can provide insight
and feedback.
David Smith, who teaches both history and a Senior Project class at the high
school, loves watching relationships and
connections form between students and
individuals outside of Innovation Academy. “The observations and comments of
these outside professionals were glowing,
and were a testament to the effort, independence, and maturity of our students.
Many were compared to college level
seniors in their poise, and ability to effectively communicate the scope and details
of their projects with richness, humor, and
coherence,” he says.
Throughout the year, students maintain blogs that they update with reflections on their progress. After completing
extensive research, they develop an
Applied Piece, or an authentic application of their research. At the end of the
process, students present what they have
learned and created in a 30-minute public
presentation.
“Senior Project is a bridge. It asks
students to become active in their own
growth, and leads them outward from the
compulsory structures of the school to
the freedom and responsibility of society. If students believe that education is
compulsory, and lacks connection to the
real world, Senior Project gives them the
freedom to wonder, ask, discover, and
ultimately create something authentic and
meaningful,” says Smith. Many seniors
said that this was what they loved most
about Senior Project—the opportunity
to pursue something they are passionate
about, to learn to ask questions and seek
out resources, and to do something that
mattered with what they had learned.
“At its best, Senior Project is an
opportunity to find one’s path or calling
in life. Marge Piercy’s poem ‘To Be of Use’
comes to mind: How can you use your
talents and strengths to improve yourself,
overcome challenges, solve problems, and
make the world a better place?” Smith
says.
As you will see in the student profiles
that follow, Senior Project offered many
seniors the opportunity to do just that. 
Shannon Comer: What can sea glass that
washes up on the oceans’ beaches tell us
about the culture of the North Shore?
Since she was a young child, Shannon Comer has looked forward to visiting
family members who live near the ocean
in Gloucester, MA. Each time she visits,
they take a trip to the beach, looking for
sea glass and sea pottery. “I always knew
that I loved collecting sea glass, but I never
really understood the historical aspect
behind it. It seemed like a perfect fit to
base my project off of the historical significance of sea glass along the North Shore,”
she says.
In order to find her expert, Comer contacted Richard LaMotte, the author of Pure
Sea Glass: Discovering Nature’s Vanishing
Gems. Even though he lives in Maryland,
he agreed to work with her on the project.
“It was such an honor to have him as an
expert,” Comer says.
Comer always wondered why pieces
of sea glass are cloudy and difficult to
see through. As she studied the scientific
aspects of sea glass, she discovered the
answer. “Hydration is the process where
the lime and soda in the glass is leached
out by the constant contact with water,
which leaves variable pitting on the surface of the glass and causes the surface to
look a bit frosty,” she explains.
Comer also studied what sea glass can
teach us about history. “I learned all about
the culture of the North Shore through
simple pieces of sea glass. Being able to
identify each piece of sea glass in my collection was key to understanding what the
North Shore was like 100+ years ago. Just
from one small shard of glass, people can
dive into their hometown’s culture without
even knowing it!”
For her applied piece, Comer created a
book about the historical, scientific, and
aesthetic aspects of sea glass. “I am definitely most proud of my applied piece. I
really got to see my hard work pay off and
now I can bring my book with me wherever I go,” she says.
Comer continues to enjoy searching for sea glass, especially now that she
knows what she’s looking at. “The calming
effects of the ocean around you while you
collect is such a great experience, and it
actually enhances sea glass hunting for
me. When it is a beautiful day outside, I
automatically think of how great it would
be if I could spend some time at the beach
sea glass hunting.”
Sarah Landy: What is the best way for
caregivers of loved ones with dementia to
cope with the disability?
Through Innovation Academy’s internship program, Sarah Landy volunteered
at D’Youville Senior Care in Lowell, MA
this year. Her work with patients in the
Dementia Care Unit inspired her Senior
Project. She wanted to learn more about
the disorder affecting the residents, and
how it impacts their family members and
caregivers.
During her project, Landy was in contact with Deborah Zaitchik-Samet, a doctor from Massachusetts General Hospital.
She also met with Maria Maskaluk, the
program director at Community Family
Inc., an adult day health center in Lowell.
The requirement to work with an expert
provided Landy with resources and information, and also pushed her to make connections with people she didn’t know. “I
learned how to reach out to people outside
of the community for help,” she says.
Landy credits Senior Project with helping her figure out what she wants to study
in college. “I was not sure what I wanted
to do after I graduated from high school,
but now I know that I want to study
human service work with people who have
dementia.”
The most rewarding aspect of her
Senior Project, says Landy, was getting
to work with the people at D’Youville
who had dementia. “I am very proud of
the work I did at the internship. I am so
grateful that I got to spend time with these
people just to make their lives a little
brighter. I got to comfort people who were
scared. I never thought of myself as a very
strong person, but when I was there I was
forced to be. All of the residents I interacted with really gave me a lot of strength
to take charge of what I want to do with
my life” she says.
Gustav Peeterman: What does string
theory mean?
Gustav Peeterman could talk to you for
hours about String Theory. “In its most
basic form, String Theory postulates that
all of the base particles in the universe are
made of strings and that the frequency
that the string vibrates at decides the
properties of the particle,” he explains.
As part of his project, Peeterman also
learned about the theories of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. “Quantum
Mechanics consists of a series of equations
that are used to predict the movements of
subatomic particles,” he shares. “General
Relativity is used to describe the force of
gravity. General Relativity is mostly used
when calculating gravity for very large and
heavy things.”
Peeterman says that String Theory’s
crowning achievement is that it allows
Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity to work together. Before it was developed, whenever Quantum Mechanics and
General Relativity were used in conjunction they would produce infinite answers,
which are meaningless.
“String theory fixes this problem by
setting a finite size for the base particles
instead of using the one-dimensional
points that were used before. This fixes
the problem by making the scale of the
particles large enough to no longer be
affected by quantum jitters,” he says.
While Peeterman went into Senior
Project in the fall knowing almost nothing
about String Theory, by the spring, he was
able to teach it to his peers in a lesson plan
that he developed and presented for his
Applied Piece. He wanted to share what he
learned with his classmates, even though
it was a challenge: “Since String theory is
purely theoretical and very complicated,
it was challenging to think of a way to
present it that would be effective,” he says.
Peeterman was able to create a lesson that
pushed his peers to engage with the material and enabled them to understand the
basic principles.
Peeterman says that Senior Project
helped him develop the skills to work
independently on a long-term project,
which was an invaluable experience. “I
was also really proud of the fact that I was
able to research and understand a topic
such as String by myself,” he says.
 Erika Taylor: How does learning the correct
pronunciation of a foreign language allow
singers to have good diction?
Erika Taylor is a classical singer who
has been taking voice lessons at Indian
Hill Music school for three years. When
deciding on a Senior Project topic, she
thought about her senior voice recital
coming up in April. She was struggling
to learn the correct pronunciation for her
foreign language pieces in Italian, French,
German, and Spanish. She thought that
the opportunity to study techniques for
learning correct pronunciation would help
her with her recital music.
Taylor’s enthusiasm for her topic was
essential. “It is the longest school project
I’ve ever worked on and I found that it
takes a lot of self-motivation and a strong
passion for your topic.”
Taylor devoted a lot of time to learning the International Phonetic Alphabet
(IPA), a system of individual symbols
that represent each individual sound of
all languages. Using the IPA, she was able
to notate the pieces for her recital so that
she could correctly pronounce the words,
even though she didn’t fluently speak the
languages.
Taylor says she benefited immensely
from the guidance and knowledge of her
expert, Marcie Stapp, a professor of voice
at San Francisco Conservatory and the
author of the book The Singer’s Guide to
Languages. “I was very lucky to work with
a person who I found is really an expert at
her topic” she says.
Taylor is proud of how much she
learned this year, and how confident she
felt in front of an audience at her Senior
Project presentation. “I am most proud
that I received praise about the confident
poise I had when presenting. I used to be
incredibly shy and terrified of presentations freshman year, and now as a senior,
presentations are so natural for me.”
Her mother, Yoko Taylor, credits the
school with pushing students’ presentation skills. “I think the process of learning
is so unique at our school because of all
of the continuous practice and gradual
increase in intensity of the presentations.
I believe that IACS has structured its goal
of developing strong presentation and
research skills in a gradual way within a
supportive community. As a parent, it
has been amazing to watch our daughter
bloom into a confident public speaker.
This communication skill has been very
effective during her college auditions,
whether performing or interviewing,”
Yoko Taylor says.
In the fall, Erika Taylor is heading to
Boston Conservatory where she will be
a classical vocal performance major. She
believes that the research she completed
for Senior Project will help her as she
studies Italian, French and German, and
takes classes on the International Phonetic
Alphabet.
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