This creative project consists of a series of narrative and interactive videos that explains the Mediterranean Diet from both nutritional and cultural perspectives, its history, and shares the stories and insights of female farmers in Southern Italy. These women preserve native ancient varieties of edible flora and cultural practices that have evolved with the plants and the territory. This video series recognizes the women preserving their traditions and local varieties native to Southern Italy and highlights the importance of local place-based eating and foodways. The videos provide questions and vocabulary to engage with the audience and challenge them to develop ideas and ruminate on the material presented.

Samantha and Rachel both have a history in gifted education and wanted to create a safe space for the two of them and their peers to discuss the effects gifted/ accelerated education has had on them, specifically pertaining to burnout. To best dive into this matter, Gifted Kid Syndrome podcast was born! During which, our hosts interviewed students and professionals, allowing everyone to share their pasts, their hopes for the future, and what they’ve learned along the way regarding mental health, identity, education, and personal success.

"After his fiancé's sudden death, a medic-in-training becomes targeted by a spirit with the ability to manipulate thoughts." The compelling question of Something Beautiful is, “What is the price of clinging to internal perceptions?” The central idea of this project is to create a story about a character whose internal conflicts surrounding an event, in this case his boyfriend’s death, end up creating an environment in which those internal perceptions and his adherence to them lead to a potential downfall. Throughout my college experience, almost all of my open-ended work has involved some psychological aspect. The idea of one’s view and experience being vastly different from the truth, with little way of knowing, fascinates me. It’s a powerful way of assembling a story and an inherently nontraditional way of depicting things – one I’ve found works. The brain is a maze and there are countless engaging, innovative ways to depict this maze. The result of this project will be a 10–15-minute festival-ready short film exploring the themes discussed above. Production was a difficult process outside of the capstone system, and editing is underway as of April 2022, with a full release and festival run planned for the summer.

American Sign Language (ASL) is used for Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) individuals to communicate and learn in a classroom setting. In ASL, fingerspelling and gestures are two primary components used for communication. Fingerspelling is commonly used for words that do not have a specifically designated sign or gesture. In technical contexts, such as Computer Science curriculum, there are many technical terms that fall under this category. Most of its jargon does not have standardized ASL gestures; therefore, students, educators, and interpreters alike have been reliant on fingerspelling, which poses challenges for all parties. This study investigates the efficacy of both fingerspelling and gestures with fifteen technical terms that do have standardized gestures. The terms’ fingerspelling and gesture are assessed based on preference, ease of use, ease of learning, and time by research subjects who were selected as DHH individuals familiar with ASL.

The data is collected in a series of video recordings by research subjects as well as a post-participation questionnaire. Each research subject has produced thirty total videos, two videos to fingerspell and gesture each technical term. Afterwards, they completed a post-participation questionnaire in which they indicated their preference and how easy it was to learn and use both fingerspelling and gestures. Additionally, the videos have been analyzed to determine the time difference between fingerspelling and gestures. Analysis reveals that gestures are favored over fingerspelling as they are generally preferred, considered easier to learn and use, and faster. These results underscore the significance for standardized gestures in the Computer Science curriculum for accessible learning that enhances communication and promotes inclusion.