Seventh grade students at Shorewood Intermediate School participated in the school's first annual Capstone Fair on Tuesday, April 16.
The event offered an opportunity for community partner organizations to share a current or recent problem or challenge that Shorewood 7th grade students could research and solve throughout the next year as the subject of their Capstone project. See photos from the event here.
The event offered an opportunity for community partner organizations to share a current or recent problem or challenge that Shorewood 7th grade students could research and solve throughout the next year as the subject of their Capstone project. See photos from the event here.
Over 15 partner organizations participated in the event, including: The Cathedral Center, The Commons, Habitat for Humanity, Learn Deep, Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) CREATE Institute, Northwoods Digital, PNC Bank, REDgen, Riverwest Food Pantry, Rockwell Automation, The Lubar Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, The Shorewood Business Improvement District (BID), U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Victory Garden Initiative, and Wisconsin State Representative David Bowen.
The Capstone Fair provided a trade show format, with students browsing tables to meet the partner organizations and learn about authentic community problems and challenges shared by each organization. Students are given the opportunity to choose the problem or challenge that they find most interesting, and will begin researching the topic for their project over the next year. Students will engage in research to learn more about the topic, practice empathy to understand the perspectives of those experiencing the problem or challenge, test a solution, and then present their ideas on how to solve this real-world problem in our community.
By having local community members and organizations share the challenges and problems they face, students will gain a better understanding of their community and choose an engaging topic to dive into throughout their 8th grade year. At the end of 8th grade next year, the students will present a Passage presentation on their project to explain how they went about choosing their challenge, conducting research, and developing ideas for a solution.
For more information about Capstone Day, please contact Authentic Learning Coordinator Nate Schultz at [email protected].