Tiverton Students Persevered To Complete Senior Projects In COVID Era


TIVERTON – So determined to create his own video game similar to the ones he’s been playing since he was young, Tyler Verrette has spent months studying over 20 different computer coding magazines, many hours watching YouTube videos on the coding and weeks of writing the code sequence for the game.

Any errors and the game will not work.

The senior year at Tiverton High School has changed in many ways due to the COVID pandemic, including the senior project which is required for graduation, but this year did not include mentors.

For Verrette, that meant he was learning to code on his own and ultimately writing 300 lines of code for the four-level game.

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“A lot of times I wanted to try and change my senior project into something easier,” he said. But he persevered. “I was ecstatic when it finally worked.”

The senior year was a ‘roller coaster’

Seniors are required to complete a project that is ‘a time of learning’ for them, said director Christopher Ashley of the project that requires research, writing and creation, and then presenting it. to the judges.

In past years, members of the public have been asked to be judges, but that too has been dropped from this year’s plan due to COVID. Only the professors judged the projects this year.

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Betty Anselmo has been a high school history and law teacher for 24 years and said “this is the worst time in education I can remember”, because of COVID. “But still, look at what they produced,” she said of the 125 seniors’ plans.

Callie Moran made her own perfume. Lindsey Reimels created biodegradable makeup wipes. Kaylee Martins built her own coffee table out of epoxy resin, and Abby Arruda spent months painting a mural of Portas da Cidade on the walls of the Portuguese and Spanish classroom.

High school “was a roller coaster,” said Brady Beaulieu, senior, who built a patio for his project, but he also spent 60 hours of his free time beautifying the high school yard.

All the weeding, mulching and planting was done so that “classmates and teachers could have something to watch,” he said. “With COVID, we have lost a lot.”

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His classmate Tim Borden built a picnic table for the yard as part of his project.

Some have had more challenges than others. Kaela Carvalho looked after her 1 year old son Tristen and while juggling lessons and homework.

Kaela Carvalho did research

“She recognized the importance of getting her degree,” Ashley said, and the school worked with her schedule to make it happen. “It’s a great success. “

Carvalho’s dream has always been to become a police officer, and “The Society’s Perspective on Police” was the subject of his senior project.

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“The police as a whole are accused for the mistakes of a few,” Carvalho said. “These men and women are risking their lives for people they don’t even know.”

Carvalho now knows many officers from the Tiverton Police Department, having spent time there observing and interviewing many in the “never-closing” department, she noted.

The learning stretch for Martins was to build an epoxy resin coffee table, like the ones she sees online.

Martins made the table out of epoxy resin using cherry wood his grandfather gave him. It took her months to research and go through the many steps to complete it, and she is now considering earning more “as a side business” to make money.

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“I hope to see how much I can sell it,” said Martins, who started researching the project last November and finished it in April.

Show your work

Students who built things or created products also had to source materials.

Reimels said she was “passionate about the environment” and wanted to do her part to reduce waste. She therefore created biodegradable makeup wipes based on natural products.

“I have found that store bought wipes are not biodegradable. Makeup wipes are the third most wasteful product, ”said Reimels.

Lindsey Reimels, passionate about the environment, created biodegradable makeup wipes for her senior project at Tiverton High School.

She got some pure cotton and came up with a witch hazel and coconut oil formula that she applies to the cotton, then wraps the wet wipes in brown paper bags that she lines with wax. bee to keep the bag dry. And everything is biodegradable.

They work so well that she was able to remove makeup from the costumes with just one wipe.

“I wanted to show people that it’s easy to change your daily routine for the benefit of our environment,” said Reimels, who plans to study marine and environmental science at university and work with it. plastic companies to reduce waste.

“Anyone can participate in saving our planet,” she writes in her project.

Spring has always been Moran’s favorite time of year, especially the weeks when lilacs and lily of the valley are in bloom. Perfume is one of the things she collects, so she decided to combine the scents of spring and her love of perfumes by creating her own perfume.

“It was the perfect opportunity to create something that I’m passionate about,” said Moran, who spent a lot of time in the chemistry lab mixing small batches, sometimes adding ingredients drop by drop, until that she has the right formula.

She calls her perfume “Persephones Tears” after the Greek goddess of spring.

Arruda painted a freehand wall-sized mural that depicts the city gates of St. Michael, in the Azores, where his father was born. Sitting under the door is a famous Mexican painter named Frida Kahlo.

“My goal was to combine cultures,” Arruda said of the mural on the back wall of a classroom where Portuguese and Spanish classes are taught and where she spent four years learning Portuguese.

“I put my blood, sweat and tears in this thing,” Arruda said of the 70-80 hours she spent painting it between late October 2020 and March. “I wanted to represent a big part of history,” she said of details that include the Portuguese and Spanish coats of arms and national flags.

Arruda plans to study forensic psychology at university. Martins will study elementary education; Verrette will study marketing; and Moran plans to study law after graduation.


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