Karly Irmen, a Grade 12 student at Salmon Arm Secondary School (Sullivan) started to volunteer at the Salvation Army’s Lighthouse awhile back and, seeing the need, she decided to do a food and clothing drive for Lighthouse in January.
Because there had been a large food drive at SAS Sullivan in December, Karly decided to do her one week clothing and food drive at Jackson. She organized a contest which had classes at the school compete against each other to see who could gather the most food bank donations, with the winners earning bragging rights and doughnuts from Tim Hortons.
The response was a little overwhelming. . . 295 pounds of food and 17 large garbage bags of clothing were donated!
She said she was amazed and heartwarmed by the response and generosity of students and staff at Jackson. She grinned that her room was a bit of a maze while she stored all the donations before delivering it to Lighthouse on Thursday January 21. These donations were in addition to the $175 she collected at a local shopping mall, and she had 70 pounds of food donated by Bulldog Boxing.
Karly is using her experiences in volunteering and organizing the food drive as part of her capstone graduation project (which replaced grad transitions when B.C.’s graduation program was updated a few years ago).
For those unfamiliar, a capstone project is a multidisciplinary project that serves as a culminating experience for graduating students. Capstone projects can take on many forms, but most are in-depth inquiries that conclude in a final project, presentation, or performance. Students will be asked to select a topic that interests them, a potential profession, or a social problem that interests them, research that subject, journal findings or experiences, develop a portfolio, create a final product representing their learning (a paper, short film, or multimedia presentation, for example), and present their project to a panel of teachers, experts, and community members.
Capstone projects are designed to have students think critically and creatively, solve challenging problems, and develop skills such as communication, public speaking, research skills, media literacy, teamwork, planning, self-efficacy, self-regulation, and goal setting —i.e. skills that will help prepare them for postsecondary school, modern careers, and adult life. The projects will be mostly interdisciplinary, in the sense that they require students to apply skills or investigate issues across many different subject areas.
The capstone components are an opportunity for students to further develop and showcase their strengths, passions, and learning journey. As a celebration of their learning journey, the capstone is a place where students are encouraged to share successes both in school and out of school, including their reflections on core competency development, their contributions and aspirations, and their plans for post-graduation. Each student’s capstone project is unique and can take many different forms, depending on student needs and interests and the opportunities available in local school communities.