Passions Fly on Senior Project Forum Day

Noah Treiman has long been interested in engineering and electronics, but his final assignment at Crossroads pushed him to new scientific heights.

 

He spent countless hours designing, constructing, testing and tweaking a small solar-powered plane, which he displayed atop the Projects Pavilion in the Alley as he and other graduating students presented their culminating Senior Projects.

 

“It was pretty complicated,” Noah says of the process. “I had never done anything like this before my project. … I was just enthralled by the idea of flying indefinitely on the power of the sun.”

 

Senior Projects give outgoing Crossroads students the opportunity to explore areas of interest and pursue topics of curiosity before graduating. They choose mentors, report to assigned project managers and designate about 30 hours per week over three weeks to complete their endeavors. The students then shared results with parents, peers and faculty in 15-minute presentations on the 21st Street Campus.

 

This year’s projects delved into disciplines as diverse as culture; design; food and farming; geography; linguistics; medicine; mental health; multimedia; technology; and the arts.

 

Laura Cortez researched intersectional feminism, detailing the origin of the movement and its place in identity politics. She attended a talk at the UCLA Hammer Museum featuring law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, who coined the term “intersectionality,” and gleaned insights from activists like Audre Lorde and Angela Davis. She also wrote a script and learned how to compile a documentary using video software.

 

Laura, who plans to attend Barnard College in New York City, says her Crossroads education inspired her to pursue this topic for her Senior Project.

 

“I became more of an activist,” she says. “People are saying, ‘Why do we need intersectional feminism?’ ... We do have to take into consideration those overlapping identities so we can better understand who we’re trying to help.”

 

Gabe Konsker took on a personal wellness challenge for his Senior Project, participating in a 7-day silent retreat in Northern California. Waking up daily at 5:15 a.m., he meditated for about eight hours each day and learned to block out external stimuli.

 

“It was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done,” he says. “The goal is to completely forget about what’s going on and just focus on your breath. It really changes you. You fall into this zone, this whole new mindset. ... I wanted to prepare myself for college, and it really helped me.”