The Appoquinimink School District offers 24 career pathways in its high schools, culminating with an immersion experience in the senior year for students. The district suggested these students to profile for their capstone projects.

“A unique aspect of an Appoquinimink education is the completion of the capstone portfolio,” a page on the district website says. ‘This work requires teens to identify a problem or challenge related to their pathway, then spend 50+ hours researching the issue in order to identify possible solutions in a process that includes mentorship opportunities with industry partners.”

Spreading positivity and researching road design

Friends Jordan Earl and Grason Jess, both Odessa High seniors, worked on separate capstones with criminal justice teacher Jill Kotowski.

Earl turned his commitment as a camp counselor for the Delaware CHANCE Foundation into a capstone project that spread positivity in the summer camp and after it ended.

One impactful relationship developed with a camper who was bullied and bullied others.

“I had a straight talk with him, and it was a heart-to-heart thing, because he felt way out of character than the other kids. And I said ‘There are always going to be bullies in your life. There are always going to be people who want to put a name on you. You have to have a strong mindset and be able to push through it. When you believe in yourself, others around you will look up to you. And you have to uphold yourself to a higher standard because you have to be a leader.’”

Earl and this camper have kept in touch, with Earl praising the camper for getting good grades, staying out of trouble and making their school basketball team. The last achievement speaks deeply to Earl, a point guard on the Odessa basketball team.

He took part in the Governor’s Summer Fellowship Program, and as part of that, he was placed with the foundation, named for its key focuses: character, honor, attitude, nurturing, care and education.

The right mindset recurred when he was asked to elaborate on mental health when he participated in the SL24 Memorial Basketball Classic, which honors Sean Locke, who lost his battle to depression a few weeks before his 24th birthday.

Earl, who plans to major in criminal justice, presented his capstone multiple times, sharing his concerns about how multiple issues affect the health, learning and behavior of children. “We – as a society and leaders in society – have to be better. Not just in life, but wherever you go. Like when you’re in a place where you feel uncomfortable and you feel like you’re in trouble or in danger, you have to be better. And you have to offer a helping hand to those in need. Because you don’t know what another person’s going through and what troubles they face.”

Jess said he connected with Matt Lichtenstein, a family friend who works at the Delaware Department of Transportation, to “basically work as an intern” in DelDOT’s legal department. That internship boosted his goal of a career in environmental law (starting first by studying political science at Hofstra), and one highlight was being in the courtroom for a case involving a candidate’s road signs.

For his capstone, “I wanted to connect my presentation to what I learned so I researched pieces of infrastructure that reduce car accidents,” he said, concluding that longitudinal rumble strips, roundabouts and highway divider medians are the most interesting.

His research affected how he drives. “I started to pay more attention because I did all this research on roads,” he said. “When you’re driving, you pay attention to the road but not necessarily all the features of it.”

Excessive testing, building a website

Appoquinimink High senior Sarah Steeves was surprised by the amount of testing going on for the second-graders that she was observing at Bunker Hill Elementary. And she worried about the effects.

Her education and leadership capstone last fall was guided by teacher Lindsay Myers. Steeves is doing a digital design capstone this spring, with teacher Aileen Murray, to build a website.

One issue was anxiety: caring less and less about all the tests. Another was the focus of the tests: whether they helped instill knowledge that prepares them for college or for life (or both).

“Anxiety exists in every age,” she said, but mainly in elementary schools. She saw a lack of focus, misunderstandings and cheating during her time with the pupils, which ran for about 90 minutes three afternoons a week. “Test anxiety is constant anxiety in test situations that can get serious enough that it can misrepresent comprehension of the material,” she wrote in her PowerPoint.

Her research on the effect of excessive testing led her to suggest three ways to improve the situation:

• Lesson plans that help with educational development, not just teaching to the test.

• Alternative assessments, such as observations, projects and group work.

• Advice in taking tests, including tips on sleep and nutrition.

Steeves, who plans to major in elementary education at the University of Delaware or West Chester University, is now working on her second capstone, to build a website for Sarah’s Stuffies, which are whimsical animals that she crochets.

Studying the ‘warrior gene’

Middletown High senior Laila Alston used a virtual neuroscience internship at Johns Hopkins University and an in-person immersion program on neuroscience and law at Columbia University in New York last summer to further her chosen career in neuroscience. Teachers Debra Otto and Colleen Barrett mentored her allied health capstone.

She titled her presentation: “Malnourishment & Violent Criminal Behavior in Male Adolescents: The Warrior Gene.” That gene is technically known as MAO-A.

She said she was inspired to study malnourishment from hearing about the childhood of her parents, who grew up poor. “A simple sandwich is two slices of bread, a slice of cheese and a couple slices of lunch meat,” she said. “For my parents, it was one slice of bread that they folded in half, a slice of cheese and pepper. They used pepper to mimic the taste of lunch meat because it was very expensive.”

“A lot of my research was qualitative,” Alston said. “There was some quantitative data, but that wasn’t really my target. I wanted to make an emotional appeal. There are some logical appeals to my research, but my focus was on making people aware of those who are in poverty so that they can donate to food pantries and things of that nature.” That’s why she gave her presentation about five times.

“I saw on people’s faces that they were truly able to learn a new perspective and they want to learn more about the problems of adolescent males’ environment. This is a topic that I want to make a career out of, not specifically dealing with malnutrition but dealing with the environmental and genetic factors of adolescents in poverty and violent crimes.”