The Bay School of San Francisco 35 Keyes Avenue, San Francisco, CA www.bayschoolsf.org
Schedule
5:30 p.m. Exhibition opens in the Great Room 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. Classroom presentations begin 7 p.m. Exhibition closes Each classroom presentation will take place at both 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. and will last for 30 minutes. Room 234: Dani Konovich and Nori Patterson Room 233: Jillian Wong
Projects Alex Ahrens Art Among the Trees Mentor: Shushan Tesfugzigta What is the artistic process comprised of? How can I focus on the environment using art? I have always been really interested in the outdoors, and I know that fighting for the environment is going to be a big part of my life. I also realized that I wanted to continue with the clay work I had started during a sculpture class over the summer. I experimented a lot and went on many outdoors adventures to feel a complete immersion in nature and in my art.
Blake Bengier How to Run for Office Mentor: James Folett My senior project explored the world of Bay Area politics. Through interviews and analysis, I aimed to create a guide for the San Francisco political scene.
Shawn Bolker SF Bay Area Waterfall Discovery Mentor: Ann Marie Brown When one thinks about the S.F. Bay area, waterfalls aren’t usually the first thing that comes to mind. However, cataracts like towering Berry Creek Falls in the South Bay redwoods or cascading Coronices Falls hidden amongst East Bay neighborhoods create some of the Bay Area’s most astonishing scenes. I created a waterfall guidebook about many known to virtually unknown Bay Area waterfalls. I also wrote a preface explaining the science that underlies why waterfalls are so relaxing.
Michelle Chui A Seasonal Guide to Organic Food Mentor: Monica Mautner Do you ever wonder what food is in season or where you can access the best organic produce? This calendar is what you’ve been looking for! It includes information on organic produce, product labels, important dates to keep you involved with your local farms and more!
Chris Clifford Cole Mogan Documenting Santa Cruz Mountain Biking Trails Mentor: Tom Harrison Our project consisted of documenting and mapping previously unmapped mountain biking trails in Santa Cruz. We created print and online versions of our map. The online version also contains first-person videos taken while riding the trails.
Elisa Cooney Cross-Culture Pen-Pal Writing Mentor: Karyn Schell How can a writing exchange program engage and excite Bay School students? To explore this question, I created a writing exchange program between the Bay School Spanish 4b students and a small rural school near Barcelona with the aim of engaging students and developing their Spanish writing skills in an exciting manner. My hope was to see how students responded to writing with another student with similar interests and to investigate whether it ignited a desire to improve their grammatical skills. In addition to their attitude towards writing, I also tracked the students’ progress during the exchange using the grades they received on their written assignments from the class.
Mark Davis Mechanics for Teens Mentor: Dodge Riedy For my project, I built a website that teaches teen drivers the importance of car mechanics: diagnosing problems, treating them, and preventing them from happening in the future. With this knowledge i want to make teens more self reliant about car maintenance and repair.
Samantha Forman The Gratification Experiment Mentor: Jyoti Mishra For my senior project I worked with a neuroscientist at UCSF on a cognitive study of teenagers without learning differences. I took the results of 20 preexisting assessments to determine a range of cognitive abilities for 16 different teens. I then analyzed the results of each assessment to find cognitive qualities that correlated with delayed or immediate gratification tendencies .
Malcolm Jaramillo Dead End: Disaster Preparedness for the Zombie Apocalypse Mentor: Barry Wong Natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and power grid failures -- they all can happen without warning. But a zombie apocalypse? What do you do then? I created a guide to help you get through any disaster scenario, even one where the dead come to life.
Dani Konovich Nori Patterson The Sideways Truth: High School Exposed Mentor: Shirley Tatum 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. presentation: Rm. 234 The film industry portrays high school as a place where acne-free 25-year-old actors play 15-year-old teenagers and define their lives by a chain of command. These characters are people that we wish we could be in high school but unfortunately can’t. Movies and TV shows set unrealistic expectations for what the high school experience is like. The Sideways Truth is an original screenplay written by Nori that exposes what high school is actually like and invites viewers to consider the possibility that the real thing can be just as interesting as the movies. Dani cast, directed, filmed, and produced a trailer for the film.
Monica Lee Green is the New Black Mentor: Divya Manian There’s only one Earth, so what are we going to do with it? For an environmentally conscious world, I am motivated to reduce not only my carbon footprint, but also everyone else’s. I created a website to calculate the daily amount of waste someone produces and give them tips on how to tweak their everyday tasks.
Morey Lipsett Teaching the Examined Life: How a Philosophy Course Can Help Students Deal with the Struggles of Life and High School Mentor: Jana Mohr Lone Many people think that Philosophy is an abstract and impractical discipline, but in reality Philosophy is an essential part of our everyday lives. For my Senior Project I created a series of philosophy classes that combines classical, modern and contemporary sources with intensive dialogue and contemplation to help students better live an examined life.
Leila Meraz-Baca The Final Chapter: What Does Senior Year Mean to You? Mentor: Shirley Tatum I created a time capsule for the Class of 2015 by conducting, filming and editing interviews that will be sent to my classmates in 2019, the year most of us will be seniors in college.
Sydney Shafer Accessible Coding Mentor: Renee Chu By designing a five-class web design course, I worked to make coding accessible for people who feel excluded from or intimidated by tech culture. Students learned the basics of HTML & CSS while coding custom Tumblr themes in a comfortable, open environment.
Sammy Shea Foils for the Future Mentor: Dennis Deisinger My project included modeling a foiling catamaran to look at its feasibility as a future public transit option. I built a scale model from the drawings of a real, working Golden Gate Ferry, added hydrofoils, tested its performance, and presented my findings to Golden Gate Ferry representatives.
Isabella Shmelev Are You Really Going to Put That There?: Organization for Teens Mentor: Debra Baida Organizational skills are extremely important for every student’s success in school, but successful organization is different for everyone. I created a series of online videos for freshmen which gives them a broad understanding of what skills they can use and helps them customize those skills to fit their own unique needs and learning styles.
Tess Tanaka Backpacks for the Homeless Mentor: Travis Hamilton How can volunteering with the homeless make teenagers more aware of the problem? I had Bay School students interview senior citizens at the Episcopal Community Services of San Francisco and reflect on their feelings about homelessness. I also collected backpacks and fundraised for essential everyday goods and passed out them out as my final product.
Jillian Wong Cooking Up Confidence Mentor: Tracie Grufman 6 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. presentation: Rm. 233 Teens today barely know how to function in a kitchen. Through a web-series of 4 videos, kids will learn about general cooking safety and how to be more confident in the kitchen and beyond. I explored the correlation of learning something new and unknown with the confidence of taking on the challenge.
Seline Zhao The Environmental Cookbook Mentor: Bob Tanaka One of Bay’s precepts is that “we are careful, conscious consumers,” but does the community really honor this guideline? This book encourages Bay students to think more critically about the school’s approach to sustainability and to take action in addressing environmental issues.
Mentors, thank you so much for all of the expertise and guidance you’ve provided throughout the year. These projects would not have been possible without you!
Save the Date
Senior Signature Projects T3 Exhibit
The Class of 2015
tion Night: Thursday, June 4, 2015
Senior Signature Projects are the capstone to The Bay School’s academic curriculum. Guided by Bay’s Senior Signature Projects instructors, students organize and plan their projects, reach out to potential mentors, track and document their progress and work through project-specific challenges as they arise. In the end, each student creates a deliverable and makes a formal presentation to the school community. Through these projects, students explore possible areas of study for college and careers, develop projectplanning and professional skills and connect deeply with the community beyond the walls of the school.