Learning Has No Bounds: SSP and Intersession

Learning Has No Bounds

Senior Signature Projects and Intersession

The Bay School of San Francisco 35 Keyes Avenue San Francisco, CA 94129 www.bayschoolsf.org 2013-2014

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 Senior Signature Projects – Expanding Students’ Horizons A highlight of each student’s 12th-grade year, the Senior Signature Projects program is designed to be the culminating experience of a Bay education. In this program, students embark on a journey of personal investigation and discovery. Significantly different from senior programs at many high schools, The Bay School’s program is a requirement for graduation and involves extensive field work for which students earn full academic credit for a twotrimester elective course.

 Intersession Week Each spring during Intersession, Bay students and their teachers venture out of the classroom and into the exciting world that surrounds them. Five full days of experiential learning await students as they choose from more than 20 courses offering a broad range of hands-on learning opportunities throughout the Bay Area and beyond.

It’s a special time for students and teachers to share their passions together in small groups – whether through mastering the art of darkroom photography or rock climbing, trekking through wilderness landscapes in Death Valley or the coastal mountains, exploring San Francisco’s neighborhoods, learning more about poetry or dance, sailing on a tall ship in the Channel Islands, building and launching a near-space balloon, volunteering in a community garden or a retirement community, or amassing their culinary and historical knowledge of locally produced foods such as cheese, chocolate and organic vegetables.

Teachers and students work together to propose courses, varying the selection of offerings from year to year. It’s a time to work collaboratively, a time for students and teachers alike to expand their learning horizons.

RECENT INTERSESSION COURSE OFFERINGS

 Gallery Crawl and Poetry Slam  Voyage on a Tall Ship  Havasu Falls Backpacking  The Sounds and People of San Francisco: Digital Storytelling  Bay Space Program – Ikaros Near-Space Balloon  Lending a Hand: Volunteering at a Soup Kitchen and Senior Living Facility  Bay Area Organic Food Tour  Marine Ecosystems  Figure Drawing  Model UN  Mindfulness in Nature: Backpacking and Meditation  Bike the Bay  Dance  Social Justice  Live Music in San Francisco  Project Runway – Fashion Design, Sewing and Producing a Fashion Show  Darkroom Photography  Building a Supercomputer  Creative DNA: Writing in the Woods 2013-2014

The program offers a meaningful opportunity for each 12th-grader to investigate a question in depth, in a manner that connects the student to the world outside the school and serves the greater good. Each student works with an adult mentor, usually at a Bay Area company or nonprofit organization, who provides expertise and guidance. Projects in recent years have included clinical trials at UCSF, creation of a marketing website for a local nonprofit, writing a screenplay about competition in the lives of teens, teaching sustainable agriculture at a community garden, building drone aircraft for aerial photography, creating a documentary film, participating in marine mammal research, building a confocal microscope and more.

Guided by 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 project-planning and professional skills and connect deeply with the community beyond the walls of the school.

RECENT SENIOR SIGNATURE PROJECTS TOPICS

 Building a hydrogen fuel cell  Creating a guide on chess opening theory  Teaching children at a community garden  Sports and business: applied habits of mind  Creating a children’s book  Interactive sculpture  Documentary film on San Francisco’s street art  Empowering minority youth through the arts  Designing and building a binocular telescope  Writing a food justice cookbook  Exploring the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)  Exploring privilege and fostering international aid  Launching a Bay newspaper  Building a confocal microscope  Using molecular biology to determine ancestry of students and faculty  Internship at the San Francisco Giants  Energy efficiency for The Bay School  Constructing a drone aircraft  Developing a promotional video for Artistry Studios  Teaching life skills through golf  The ecology of San Francisco Bay  Songwriting, recording and production  Memory and Aging – UCSF neuroscience research  Raising awareness for Palestine  Costumes and movement in theater  Internship at a biotech laboratory, studying the biology of cancer stem cells  Hosting a student leadership seminar  Sustainable fashion design  Piano composition and performance  Rocketry