Successfully Executed Senior Projects in a Distance Learning, Digital-Only World – by the Kehillah Staff and Class of 2020
Distance learning meant finding new ways to do daily lessons as well as finding creative ways to facilitate so many other things that we do during the course of a normal school year. Our faculty championed so many creative alternatives to staring at screens including creating clever avenues for Senior Projects to be accomplished. Whether studying backyard opossums, baking a wedding cake, delving into neuroscience, or women’s studies, we are super impressed with all that our students did and all that our teachers facilitated from the confines of home.
The Senior Projects options included:
Creative Arts Skills Camp
Dr. Dooley brought interested students together to inform and enlighten them with special guest speakers including, visual artist Mark Joshua Epstein, pianist Moisès Fernández Via (Boston University), curator Staci Steinberger (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), feminist historian Melissa Lo (Shondaland), and former Kehillah theater teacher, writer, actor, producer, DJ/MC, storyteller, and filmmaker, Jake Arky.
Culinary Skills Camp
The Kehillah staff championed a full online cooking school with guest teachers that offered information on using the right tool for the right job, cake decorating, and more! Head Chef and owner of The National in Athens, GA, Peter Dale, began their cooking education with a lesson on how to make a romesco sauce. Mrs. McElhatton taught cake decorating with tempered chocolate and berries – students did a pseudo wedding cake theme for Dr. Dooley that was oh-so-sweet! Mrs. Ratledgec created a cooking channel playlist that the kids chopped, diced, baked, and roasted their way through.
You can dive into the senior’s reflections here.
Business and Leadership Skills Camp
This comprehensive camp yielded some truly interesting results. Students made mock business proposals around needs in the real world and pitched them to Kehillah staff and classmates. Some ideas were around the topics of food delivery service, video games, the college app process, retail, and more. One student actually built an app from start to finish! He worked through bugs, found fixes, and addressed a myriad of obstacles that stand in the way for so many developers as they create our favorite apps. This process was a great way to understand some of the realities around app creation in our digital age.
Medical and Health Skills Camp
In this fascinating camp students delved into the paths and fields of study in the medical world. Some topics included neuroscience, pulmonary medicine, and cardiology. Students heard from doctors, nurses, and medical students in these various medical fields. In the final project presentations, students discussed what they learned, and what they found was most interesting.
Passion Projects
Passion Projects empowered students to “choose their own adventure” and took on a life of their own with a diverse range of interests and modes of expression. From senior, Graham Piercey’s, opossum rescue project that was an adorable lesson in our often misunderstood backyard rascals to the uplifting, “Some Good News” project that was done with heart by seniors, Caroline Kramer and Michelle Zemlyak, who also crafted, Seniors of Kehillah. Lily Guggenheim delved deep into a Women’s Studies arena and illuminated a variety of topics with thoughtful and thorough research. There was amazing work done by all of the students with unyielding support from teachers.
