Senior Projects

 

Senior projects allow students to conclude their time at Concord Academy with self-designed, faculty-supported, individualized study and one-of-a-kind experiences.

 

Early in the fall of their senior years, CA students have the opportunity to apply for senior projects for the final spring term of their Concord Academy careers. These full-credit major courses, designed and proposed by the students themselves and approved by a faculty committee, allow seniors to pursue independent courses of study with an interdisciplinary or experiential component. All projects include a member of the faculty as advisor, and may include an advisor off campus as well.

Some Senior Projects from Recent Years

  • Proof-of-concept construction of a tactile drawing interface for the blind
  • An exploration of staging in Samuel Beckett’s plays from a mathematical perspective
  • A study of Boston Common through photography and essay
  • A historical study of Isadora Duncan through the lens of feminism and dance performance
  • An analysis of redevelopment in post-Katrina New Orleans
  • An exploration of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the study of children’s literature and writing of a children’s book
  • A historical study of Moorish-Spain through its geometry and Islamic influence
  • A documentary about the construction of the Quabbin Reservoir
  • A comparison of New England raw milk dairy farms and research for designing a future dairy farm
  • Construction of an urban garden for a women’s shelter
  • A presentation on mass incarceration and its effects on women in Massachusetts
  • An analysis of the chemistry of caffeine
  • The creation of a promotional video for a nonprofit that addresses food insecurity
  • A study of the intersections between environmental justice and the arts
  • A documentary film about Brazilian life under dictatorship, based on original oral histories in Portuguese
  • A report on the environmental impacts of downhill skiing
  • An exploration of the connection between the mind and music, and coping strategies for performance anxiety
  • A prototype of a bioelectronic “intuitive navigation” device for the visually impaired, using electrical muscle stimulation
  • Hands-on experimentation with global fermentation methods
  • Designing and building a minibike
  • A syllabus for a history class on gender, race, and medical intervention 
  • Original illustrations for a book by one of CA’s faculty members
  • A project reusing plastic bags to construct sleeping mats for people experiencing homelessness
  • A proposal for turning Boston’s Emerald Necklace into an “Emerald Net”
  • A zero-waste sustainability challenge