Nery Leon The importance of Self Defence

Claim: I will learn to defend myself in typical situations and understand why it is important to know self-defence techniques.

Reason: Large cities in the Bay area, like San Francisco, Oakland, and Richmond, have high rates of violent crimes. I feel that it is important not to let oneself fall victim of these dangerous societies but instead to feel the liberty of walking down the street without concern for personal safety.

Evidence: I am taking a self defence class on Mondays and Wednesdays. I keep a journal for daily logs and sometimes take video of our quizzes. Here is a picture from a video of our first quiz. Our teacher wore a redman suit and attacked my classmate then she had to defend herself and get the teacher away from her with any of the techniques that the teacher has taught us.

Ramirez, Victoria

Claim: I am going to paint three canvases with three distinguishably different styles. One will be abstract, which is going to be difficult; the other from a feminist point of view, showing the innocence and strength of a women; the last, an art-deco type of piece that is only tri-colored and two dimensional of a random person.

Reason: I want to challenge myself into doing different types of painting because it might be something that will help me get away from everyday life into a "different world" - relaxing. If I turn out to like it a lot, I might just go study in Paris to be an artist. I would also like to research artists, since I am not yet fully knowledgable about them or their techniques. This might open up a new door for me.

Evidence: I will log the hours I spend painting, and with Ms. Mosen and my mentor. To show my whole project I shall do a quick video and bring my paintings. I will make it artistic and as if it were coming from an actual artist.

Value: Like I stated before, this might open new doors for me and may lead me to figure out what I want to do. Or if it's not something I want a career in, it can be a hobby for the rest of my life.

Huizar, Daisy

Claim
My project is to shadow the Athletic Trainer at Contra Costa College. I will be his intern and help him with the athletes that have injuries, as well as learn the different ways to help with all types of injuries.
Reason
I want to shadow an athletic trainer because I am still unsure of what I want to major in. That is why I want to get experience, to figure out if that is the career path that I want to be headed towards.
Evidence
I am going to internship with Brian Powelson for 20 hours and present my findings with a powerpoint presentation on being an athletic trainer and all the aspects of becoming one.
Value
I want to do this because being an athletic trainer is all I have ever thought of being that is related to what i want to do and I want to be sure that I am headed in the right direction. It is more to help me decide what i want to become, since i have been undecided for years and have finally taken interest in a certain career.

Martin Ocampo

Claim: For my senior project I will be coaching elementary students on how to play soccer. The school that I am coaching is Lake Elementary through a program called Soccer Scores. I go Monday through Friday from 3 to 5 and to the games on Saturdays.

Reason: Kids tha live in Richmond usually spend time on the streets as they grow up but if these kids play soccer they will stay of the streets becuase thet would have to attend soccer practice and games.

Evidence: Robert Hill (415)-810-6811
Head of the wccusd sports.

Value: I want kids from impoverishded ares to have a hobby to keep them off the streets and ways from trouble. Soccer has done this for me so I am sure it will work for those kids.

Andrew Lawrence, Timothy Balmorez

Claim: For our senior project, we are going to create an instructional workout video. This video will include instructions on how to work our your body completely. We will also be informing the audience about the practice of running marathons. After seeing our video, people will be super-fit and muscular.

Reason: Since obesity is a growing problem in America, we want to educate the public on how to live a healthier lifestyle while getting into top shape. We will inform by presenting a video and explaining the dangers of obesity.

Evidence: Workout Video: A ten minute video showing a sample workout.

Workout Chart: A list that presents our progress throughout our project.

Value: The values of our project is the message we can give people about health. We want to share our ambition to be fit with everyone. We are doing our project to inspire people; that is why our project has so much value.

Florence Lau: Racial and Generation Psychology

Claim: My senior project will be on the psychology of how people classify themselves and other people based on race and gender and the reason behind it. I will interview experts, other people, and put my personal experiences in it to form a chart of data and present it to the class as (hopefully) a power point.

Reason: I am doing this because I was always interested in it. This was inspired by personal experiences and everyone values their origins. Many people are very ignorant about other people's origins and are unaware of the diversity in the world.

Evidence: My mentor is a graduate student at UC Berkeley who is majoring in Psychology. I will be attending his classes, taking notes, and interviewing him about the topic. I have read many professional essays about this topic including those written by my mentor to get a better understanding of the topic in a more educational way.

Value: I hope my project will let other people know how diverse the world is and be more aware of how people classify themselves in terms of race and age. I also hope that this project will let other people notice things they normally would not notice.

Flores, Sheyla and Cortes, Adrian: Parent-Teen Communication Skills

Improving Parent-Teenager Communication Skills


CLAIM:
My senior project includes starting a youth group at the Latina Center in Richmond and improving the communication between parents and teenagers. Adrian and I will make a survey to both teenagers and parents about what they think their biggest barrier for communication between each other happens. After we have all the surveys in the participants will read the survey aloud to the camera, and we will make a documentary video on it.

REASON:
The reason for this project is because there are many teenagers who feel unloved, or that they can’t have good communication with their parents. This is what leads teens to drugs and gang affiliations. The reason for doing the project is so that of the 100 teenagers surveyed at least 80 of those will improve their communication with their parents and stay out gangs and drugs.

EVIDENCE:
I have started reading various books on the reasons for teenage activities in gangs and drugs. All evidence proves that teens join gangs because of the lack for love in their homes. I have my own theory however, I think that it is not lack of love teens suffer, rather lack of communication and that is exactly what will be learned during this project. In my research paper I will make sure to provide enough evidence to support my claim.

VALUE:
I want to become a juvenile counselor for teenagers who need rehabilitation in the court system. This project is of great value to me because of it. I want to achieve my goal of helping teenagers succeed in life. That is the main reason for my project and the value itself. I want to prove teens that their parents do love them and to parents that the children need them more than they think. The value of my project is to better the communication of parents and their children so that the effect of drugs and gangs will not be so great here in Northern California, because after all, every little bit of it helps.

Hannah Obasi: "Safety Committe Earthquake Preparedness Video"

Claim: I am creating a safety preparedness video to prepare the local community for the next big earthquake. I want to show how to prepare, what to do during an earthquake, and tips for what to do after. Also, I will document the work being put into the large container on our football field that will be filled with safety supplies by the Safety Committee. I will make this video available to a large audience by presenting it at a meeting of representatives from the leadership classes from each high school in the district. Those members will then take that information and spread to their schools.

Reason: I want to spread awareness and create a sense of urgency and need to prepare. I want people to know exactly what to do and start preparing as soon as possible. Also, they should tell a friend.

Evidence: I have been working on the video for a few weeks. I have a lot of footage and am nearly done shooting. I just need a few more statements from a few more people. This video is for the Safety Committee within leadership, and Mr. Hoffman is my mentor. My hours are obtained through time spent working on the video.

Value: Hopefully this video will be useful to our school and others, and many will be able to carry on the information to the people around them.

Maria Rubio and Christina Diaz Senior Project: "Going Green is the Way"

Claim:Our goal is to inform younger kids about the importance of going green. We are hoping do to this in a way they can get very interested and wanting to help the environment.


Reason:The reason why we are doing this is because our school theme for the year is going green. We want to help by informing younger kids about our current problems with our environment and the importance of going green.


Value: The value of the project is to help the environment. We value our mother earth and we want to help make a difference. We believe that the younger kids are our future. They have to be informed in order to help the environment. By educating the youth about it can help make a difference.


Evidence: We are putting together a couple of presentations and go present in some Middle Schools and Elementary Schools. Right now we are in the process of talking to some of the teachers and principals so we can give our presentations. We are planning to do a documentary and give kids a survery to see how familiar are they with going green.

Mary Saephanh & Emerson Sibrian: Website

Claim: For our senior project we are working on lowering our paper consumption, and trying to encourage people to use the internet more. There are two parts to our project since there are two people working on it. The first part is making an online web page to encourage people to lower their paper consumption by posting things on the web rather than wasting paper. The second part is by actually going out in nature and planting more trees to make up for all the paper waste we have contributed to.

Reason: The reason we are doing this is because we both tend to create a lot of paper and we want to stop that.

Value: By doing this we feel that we are lowering our intake from mother earth by giving back.

Evidence: Emerson has been helping out with the bio garden to help them restart, so they could actually plant something. Emerson plans to plant a few little trees there as well as other places. Also Mary is working with an adult leader at her church to start up the website we are trying to make. Since he is very well informed with computers, he offered to help us get started.

Aimee Cruz, Angelica Foster, Shaina Travis - "Elegant Rebellion" Fashion Show

Claim: Together, our goal is to put up a very entertaining fashion show that will take place at school. Aimee's job is to be the main designer of the show and debut some of her own designs, which she will also sew. Angelica and Shaina's job are to be the coordinators of the show, providing entertainment and featuring other designers and boutiques (for recognition), as well as model some of Aimee's designs. We might, possibly, be able to auction off some of the designs.

Reason: We decided to choose a fashion show because it is the combination of our future careers. Both Shaina and Angelica want to work in visuals (visual coordinator, television producing, etc.) while Aimee wants to become a fashion designer. Also, this fashion show will help benefit the organization we will give the money to (the show will have an entrance fee).

Evidence: Both coordinators are trying to book the Knox Center for the fashion show as well as continuing to search for infamous boutiques to participate in our show. Our designer has already made a series of designs for the show, and is now working on finding models.

Value: Doing a fashion show for our project will allow us to gain an idea and experience of what we must encounter later on in our lives. This way we will be able to become more prepared for the obstacles we must face later on. Another value to this project is because we will be giving the money we made to an organization that really needs it. We also wanted to do a project different than others, so we believed a fashion show would be a good idea.

(c) Designs belong to Aimee Cruz

Charinee Prompong, Sien Rivera: Manga

CLAIM
Our goal is to create a young adult, fantasy-themed manga. The final product will be presented as a bound and covered comic book. Look for:
• Artistic and literary growth
• Mythological references, allusions
• Creativity of story, plot, setting, and characters
• Allegorical representations of current, recent history

REASON
On the writer's part, research into mythology, symbology, and current events create a personal learning stretch, and on the artist's part, research on anthropomorphization and landscape art makes for a parallel experience. We hope to not only exercise artistic ability and prepare for possible career paths with this project, but also portray a portrait of current events through a creative lens.

EVIDENCE
• Rough Sketches (see above)
• Scripts; Storyboards
• A short film documenting how to draw/what to write in manga, or possibly a "Making of" film

VALUE
Due to the nature of our project's genre, young adults will serve as the largest audience, and therefore the group that should be taken into consideration in terms of ultimate impact: will young adults understand the allegories? Will they be attentive to the story and characters? However, considering that the right literary/visual analyses are implemented by readers, then the symbolic/artistic link becomes a learning experience in and of itself—one where the analysis itself is an exercise of aesthetics and, more importantly, historical dialectics. Theoretically, publication would be the next logical step after completion. But due to time constraints, the manga may simply be presented to specific English classes either in MCHS or another school, such as Hercules Middle High School, with feedback gathered.

Vincent Cheng, Natalie Siu ~*~ The Beauty of SAM ~*~

Our senior project is going to be about the practical uses of math and science for pre-college students. The reason why we had decided on this topic is because our majors are math and engineering and we would like to become teachers/professors someday, so we thought teaching kids with simple experiments would be a good start for our future career path. Another reason why we picked this project is because we want to increase the interest of students toward academic subjects like math and science. We want to provide them with interesting background and hands-on experiments before they enter advanced level of math and science classes.

For our contacts, we have Jeff Gottesman, the District Coordinator, and Dr. Joe Ledbetter. They are going to be our advisor, and they will be helping us along the way and evaluating us at the end.

To me (Natalie), the motivation of this project is to expose to kids the beauty of science and math when they are still young. I think that learning strange things and doing hands-on experiments are going to help students with their academic classes and open their minds to an unpredictable world. As for me (Vincent), I'm more realistic. Science will be the major career in the future since a lot of things will become digitalized and high-tech, and the society will need critical thinkers like scientists and mathematicians. So, by preparing kids for math and science, they can achieve higher academic goals, which will ultimately benefit the development of our society and themselves in the future.

Destiny Poehnelt: Photography

Claim: I am putting together a collection of photos that illustrate the relationship between nature and humans, and capturing nature at its best.

Reason: I decided to do this project because I wanted to learn more about photography. I also wanted my last big project of high school to be fun and as least stressful as possible.

Evidence: Well these are just 5 of the 160 pictures I've taken. These all havent been edited yet because I just got photoshop. I have also arranged for more people to "model" for me.

Value: This project is valuable to me because I can use these photography skills in the future, for caputring memories or even professionaly (ehh you never know). I also think this will be a great way for people to look at nature and appreciate it. (enough to clean up their trash!!)

Senior Project: Scotty Chao

Claim: Learn to play piano

Reason: I've always liked the sound of the instrument and thought that I should learn how to play it =D

Evidence: I am currently taking a beginning piano class at CCC. I am also getting help from Mr. Hoffman (mentor), Carrie Phan (Co-mentor), and Jasmine Mojica (Sub-co-mentor)! As of right now (3/25/09), I'm learning how to play Scarborough Fair (Sheet music is in post, duh =p).

Value: I will gain a new, musical medium of expression! (I will also be able to boast that I can play a musical instrument well~Heck Yes! xD)

Por Exemplo - Senior Project: John Doe

Claim: Explore the open seas.

Reason: I spend too much time blogging indoors.

Evidence:


Value: I will gain physical strength through exercise and a newfound appreciation for the outdoors.

IMPORTANT
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