Senior Capstone Projects – Bringing it all together

What is the Purpose of Education?  This question is older than Socrates, and many great thinkers have posed answers to this profound question. At JRHS, our answer is captured in three concepts: Skills, Capacities and Direction. 

The Senior Capstone Project is a comprehensive, culminating experience completed during a student’s senior year. These projects challenge students to apply the knowledge and skills they have developed throughout their education to investigate real-world problems, conduct meaningful research, or create tangible and innovative products. The project is expected to exemplify the key components of the Jesse mission statement: Community, Excellence and Leadership.

These Capstone Projects

• Demonstrate new Skills that students have been learning (giftedness, interests). These Skills will become part of the toolbox the Graduate will take into their step, perhaps vocational, perhaps recreational. 

• Illustrate a student’s Capacity to develop new thought and ideas, as they bring together their classroom and experiential learning.

• Show the Redemptive Direction of learning, an acknowledgement that all learning is a gift from God, and our proper response is to bring glory to Him as we fulfill the Cultural Mandate.

An education rich in Capacity

The compass of Christian Education is pointed at something far more important than simply getting the right job, or gaining the good life. Christian learning is “not learning for the sake of learning but for the sake of glorifying God and the equipping of His people for good works. It is not merely a training ground for jobs and careers but also a proving ground for the skills that will one day be brought to bear on the unique calling and service that each Christ follower has in store for his or her life.

The Liberal Arts, Gene Fant, p.21

An education in a single Direction

The purpose and direction of learning at JRHS reflects the Cultural Mandate, the foundational biblical directive for humanity to exercise stewardship over the earth, develop its latent potential, and create human culture. Derived from Genesis 1:28, it tasks us to be fruitful, multiply, and cultivate the world to flourish. At one small level, the Senior Capstone Projects are a foreshadow of greater things ahead. In the words of Wheaton College President, Phillip Ryen, “Marriage and family. Work and rest. Science and creation care. Music and arts. Industry and technology. Sports and hobbies. Literature and history. Together these varied aspects of human life comprise our Cultural Mandate. Based on the command to fill, subdue and rule the earth, we have the God given responsibility to develop the possibilities of creation in ways that reveal our Maker’s praise, and ultimately fill the whole earth his Glory. This is how things were meant to be.”  The Christian Worldview, a Student Guide Phil Ryken, 60.

We invite our readers to enjoy an overview of The Capstone Projects, Class of 2026 https://www.jrhs.org/senior-capstone-projects