Students in this semester’s Junior/Senior Project course at Newtown High School gathered in the school’s Lecture Hall on Monday, December 21, to ready their final presentations.

The course is designed to offer students the chance to build on existing strengths and to provide the opportunity to explore a subject or career they are passionate about outside of the classroom, while developing a career-oriented relationship with a community professional as a mentor in the student’s area of chosen interest.

Elizabeth Hanna, Susan McConnell, and Peg Ragaini oversee the course and each was there as the students rehearsed presenting their completed projects. The students work with a mentor to study and create a final product or concept, which is then presented before a panel of judges for review.

The final presentations were held on January 5 and 6 in the school’s Lecture Hall.

The instructors agreed that this semester’s students showed passion when working and completing their projects.

NHS junior Nick Lombardo worked with mentor Neil Randle with Unilever for this “Hydrophobic Dog Toy,” while senior Sarah Mawdsley was mentored by NHS Business Education and Applied Technology Department Chair Eric Holst-Grubbe to design “Lituo Gier Kirkja” or “The Stained Glass Church.” Senior Alisha Aggarwal was mentored on her “Pulse Points: A Photo Journal Blog” by Newtown Bee Associate Editor John Voket and junior Taylor Pare worked with Matt Taylor of Church Hill Physical Therapy on “The Effects of Stretching on Health.”

Senior Jillian Gibney was mentored Betsy Payntor of Newtown’s Office of Economic and Community Development on her “Mobile Feeding The Need” project, while senior Kira Flynn worked with NHS physical education teacher Kathy Davey on her Unified Sports Student-Leader Guidebook, and juniors Trevor Legeret, Jack Palermo, and Brandon Pavlicek worked together with mentors Joe Pedalino, an independent filmmaker, and NHS English Department Chair Abi Marks on their Within the Woods film project.

Jillian, one of the students in the Lecture Hall on December 21, said her “Mobile Feeding The Need” project was to build a business plan to acquire a food truck for the Feeding The Need nonprofit organization launched in 2012 by then NHS junior Sonya Stanczyk. The program is a collaboration between the NHS Culinary Department and advanced culinary students and the Connecticut Food Bank. Food is prepared by the culinary students then delivered to homeless shelters.

The truck, Jillian explained, would allow the meals created by students to be brought to homeless shelters, “heated instead of being reheated. “We would also use the truck to go to different sports events around town to raise money for the charity,” she added.

Over the course of Jillian’s project she said she met with various town officials, including First Selectman Pat Llodra, and that she believes the truck will be purchased for the program within the next year, after she graduates.

Kira said she wanted to create her student leader guidebook for Unified Sports to “help any new high schools, or schools that already have a Unified Sports program, become more student-led. I think at Newtown High School that is what has made our program more unique to the others that are around us.”

The guide includes fundraising advice and more, according to Kira.

“I’ve been on Unified Sports here at NHS since it started,” Kira said. “So I’ve seen us at NHS go from the 11 students in our first basketball season to the 54 and counting this basketball season now.

“It’s been really fun to see what we have done and how we have grown so big,” Kira continued.

Before she created her guidebook, Kira said there was nothing to help student leaders guide the Unified Sports program. Kira said the Connecticut Association of Schools (CAC) and the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) purchased 100 copies of her guidebooks and the copies are already being shared across the state.

Nick said he designed his “Hydrophobic Dog Toy” to repel saliva and water.

“Say you are having a catch with the dog and the [ball] gets saliva and stuff on it, when you pick it up, it will be dry because the saliva and water will be repelled by the layer on the ball,” said Nick.

He made a proposal for the toy and a prototype it for his project.

“For the final product, which I am planning to do next semester, I am planning to use a rubber ball,” said Nick, whose family has two dogs, Bella and Chip.

Alisha said she created her “Pulse Points: A Photo Journal Blog” to “curate the extraordinary from the seemingly ordinary in people.” She interviewed about 70 people and photographed each of them for her blog. Alisha said she has been a “listener” since she was young and loved hearing experiences from her family members when she was growing up.

“I’m a bit of an introvert, so it kind of helped me to open up and approach strangers,” Alisha said.

Alisha created a “Pulse Points” Facebook page and a website, aggarwals2012.wix.com/pulsepoints, for her project.

For their joint project Trevor, Jack, and Brandon created a short film called Within the Woods.

“It was a horror movie sort of thing,” said Trevor, who said he was inspired to make the film when working to scan slides from his grandmother’s picture reels. “There was this one picture that I saw. It was a snowy landscape with what looks like a figure in shadow in the foreground, but the figure was thin and gaunt and didn’t really look human.”

The students worked together to write the film, with each taking a portion to write for their characters. Other students helped with the film, but Trevor said the three wrote, directed, and starred in the film. Trevor, Jack, and Brandon also uploaded the first act of their film to YouTube at youtube.com/onedifferentfilms.

Taylorsaid she focused her project on the benefits of stretching, “and how it works with your muscles as well as the body as a whole.” She made a brochure with examples of stretches to be done pre- and post-workout, to be placed at Church Hill Physical Therapy, and wrote a research essay about the benefits of stretching.