Saturday, March 7, 2009

An Earth Extravaganza

The Seniors in our local High School have to do a Senior Project. This involves choosing something that interests them, putting their "project", whatever it is, together, submitting a written report, and also doing an oral presentation to a panel of local citizens and teachers.

While Reno puts together a big Earth Day event in April, Carson City doesn't really do much of anything. This year a High School Senior, who intends to study Environmental Sciences after she graduates, chose to put on an Earth Day-type event. Since the various parts of the Senior projects have to be completed before graduation, she couldn't wait until the end of April so scheduled her event for today.

She did a great job putting it together. The event was in the High School gym, and well attended by both the public and by local groups providing the informational tables and displays. I'm active in Muscle Powered, a local non-profit advocating for more pedestrian and bicycle use, and so helped at our display table. Despite being the capital of Nevada, this really is quite a small town. It was fun to both talk to people about what we do, and also to check out the other displays and visit with people I knew. There's more about Muscle Powered here and here, more about the Carson High School Senior Project here.

4 comments:

Cathy said...

Hello Sadge
So she'd be about 16/17, first of all had to find a venue, then had to organise various groups to come in and put up displays explaining what their groups 'stood for' and what they did to forward their philosophies?
She did this all by herself from go to whoa ( no collaboration with or help from anyone else), wrote a paper and then gave an oral presentation on her chosen subject.
She did well - hope she scored high marks for her effort.
Give her my congratualtions - I used to run cat shows and they were b....... hard work even with the help of other like minded cat breeders/club members lol
Take care
Cathy

Annodear said...

A+++ for her!

Looks like it was fairly well attended, too.

Sadge said...

Hi Cathy,
Plus, she had to do press releases and flyers to publicize the event. Now she'll have to put her written report together, and the oral presentations usually start in April.

All the Seniors have to do a project in order to graduate. They start the year putting together their proposal and getting it approved. A teacher will serve as advisor, and will often help the student find a professional or a business in the community to work with depending on the project.

They started the Senior Project idea at least 10 years ago. After graduation each year, the kids (and the community) say it was the most inspiring thing they've ever done.

I've edited my post to add a link to the CHS Senior Project page.
~Sadge

Anonymous said...

Wonderful project, congrats to her for undertaking something so powerful. I love the idea of a senior project that goes beyond the classroom and into the community.