This year's senior projects are a varied bunch.
They range from a documentary movie on the Chief Shakes House rededication to middle-school wrestling programs. Whatever the subject of the senior project, whatever the personal interest of the student involved, each student almost invariably used the words “to give back” to describe their project.
Senior projects with 25 community service hours are required for graduation from Wrangell High School. While the number is a bare-bones requirement, students often exceed that limit.
Take Kristin Galla's documentary about the Shakes rededication. She spent 30 hours shooting the rededication footage into a documentary-length feature, and an additional 10 hours working on a presentation for a showcase held the evening of May 7. Students worked on 11 projects throughout the year.
“I wrote down 40 hours, but it took a long time to edit it as well,” she said. “I want to go to film school.”
Tyler Eagle and Matthew Covalt coordinated the the drama, debate and forensics (DDF) club's annual meet, which as DDF participants, also dovetailed with their interests. Wrestling team member Casey Shilts helped run the middle-school wrestling program.
That kind of intersection of personal interest and public gain is common, said Lisa Nikodym, who advises the projects
“I encourage it,” she said. “These kids are busy enough as it is. I highly encourage them at the beginning of the year. Let's find something you're interested in. It doesn't feel like a requirement and they enjoy doing it.”
Other students start with a general concept which is then refined. Shelby Smith and McKenna Harding worked on a community gift for Christmastime. As you'd expect, Harding is a big fan of Christmas.
“We knew we wanted to do something with little kids, and we just came up with the idea of giving them toys,” she said. “We had so many boys but we didn't have enough boys stuff.”
“It's good to just give back to the community, and it's just nice to give back to them for once,” she added.
Past projects have included the Mariners Memorial and the Parks and Recreation's swimming club other things which have made it into the public sphere. They've been a fixture of Wrangell High School starting in the late 1990s.
Each project culminates with the informal presentation night.
“The kids come in, they're required to dress very formally,” she said. “Then for an hour, the community is invited in and students discuss their projects.”
The biggest challenge isn't coming up with an idea for how to serve, but fitting the project into a crowded senior schedule, Nikodym said.
“In a class of 17, I'll bet you every single kid in that class played at least one sport this year,” she said.
Erica Smith coordinated an after-school program targeting middle school and high school students with a career bent.
“I went around the community and looked for adults that felt they had some sort of skill to offer, and they took a day and came in and taught a class,” she said.
They toured the KTSK studios one day, and another day the students made miniature pizzas.
When she started working on the project, she first saw it as another in a list of long things to do for graduation. However, as she started working on her project, her attitude changed.
“We started out real slow and we only had four kids and it kind of got me a little discouraged,” she said.
“It's great to have a way to give back,” Smith added.
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