Hello everyone, today I’m going to be talking about my Capstone share. I wasn’t that scared because I practiced a lot and I knew my script. On Monday when we presented to other classes I was’t scared because I knew that the kids were younger then me. I presented twice on Monday and I think I did good both times but better the second time. When we presented to the parents I wasn’t nervous because I felt ready. I was last and I saw everyone else do it so I knew that I could do it. I found it easy because I knew what I was saying. Overall, I think that I did really well. Here is my final project:
Today I am going to be talking about making my final capstone project. At first I wanted to do a movie but after a lot of thinking I decided to do a TED talk. I wanted to make it fun by adding questions into the TED talk. At first I decided I would ask them in the middle of the TED talk, I soon changed it to after and would do what do you remember. I started with writing my script. To write my script I listened to my interview again and again then also checked my notes. Next I made my slideshow. I matched the pictures on the slides with my script. After all my slides were made I copy and pasted my script into the speaker notes. Then I started to practice. I thought that people would get bored if I didn’t change the slide that much so I made more slides and changed the slides a lot more. Once I liked the way my slideshow looked I practiced, practiced and just kept practicing until I had it memorized. I really like the way my TED talk turned out.
Today I am going to be talking about how I answered my main inquiry question. I had to answer it by writing a essay. My main inquiry question is what are the key factors that lead to S’wells success? I found it easy to write it because I did a lot of research and know a lot about my topic. Once I had my foundation of my essay done I had to craft it. I added information and took out some. I found better examples for some of my reason. Once I was done I got some feedback. I added the feedback into my essay and then I was done. Here is my essay:
She was driving a nice car, she was carrying a nice handbag but she was using a ugly plastic water bottle. In 2010 the S’well Bottle company was founded by Sarah Kauss. Her mission is to rid the world of plastic water bottles. Her way to do that is to create a fashionable and functionable water bottle. A S’well bottle keeps your water cold for 24 hours and hot for 12 hours. In 2016 S’well got very popular and their earnings increased by 50 million dollars. S’well has many collections designed for different things. She has a traveler collection that is meant for hot drinks because it has a wide and thick rim so you don’t burn your tongue when you drink a hot drink. There is also a Roamer collection that is like an on-the-go pitcher. S’well is so successful because of Sarah Kauss’s leadership, their marketing strategies, and their mission to rid the world of plastic water bottles.
S’well is so successful because of Sarah Kauss’s leadership. She is very considerate and puts other before herself. She is a leader because she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Sarah had to walk into stores herself and ask them to sell her product. Most stores said no and that they don’t carry water bottles. She went to many other stores hoping that one will say yes and sell her product. This shows leadership because she was and still is a role model to people and shows that you should never give up because good things can happen. Sarah Kauss is also a leader because she keeps her company organized. For example, once every week all of the main owners and senior vice presidents (SVP’s) of most departments meet and discuss ideas for a hundred thousand dollar products, a one million dollar product and a five million dollar product. This shows that S”well is so successful because of Sarah Kauss’s leadership.
S’well is so successful because of their marketing strategies. S’well has been in a bunch of magazines that all helped business. One example is when Oprah named S’well as one of her favorite products. This benefitted S’well because people trust Oprah so they all went out and bought a S’well bottle which made S’well gain a bunch of business and once you have one S’well you want all of them. S’well has a bunch of collection designed for different drinks. This makes S’well gain more business because you want to S’well bottle designed for hot drinks, and you want the S’well bottle designed for cold drinks and all the bottles in between. This shows that S’well is so successful because of their marketing strategies.
S’well is so successful because of their mission to rid the world of plastic water bottles. Sarah cares a lot about the environment, she is all for getting rid of the great pacific garbage patch. One example is other people who cares a lot about the environment the way Sarah does buy S’well bottles because they are reusable and they don’t use plastic water bottles. S’well bottles are made of stainless steel and are BPA free which is a chemical that is used to make certain plastics. Another example is that S’well aims to displace 100 million plastic water bottles by 2020. This project is called the million bottle project. People who want S’well to accomplish their goal don’t use plastic water bottles and use S’well bottles. This shows that S’well is so successful because of their mission to rid the world of plastic water bottles.
In conclusion, S’well is successful because of Sarah Kauss’s leadership, their marketing strategies and their mission to rid the world of plastic water bottles. S’well’s success lead to them being the fastest women owned company according to Fortune magazine. S’well now is very successful but they had a rough start. She was selling bottles out of her New York City apartment. Her parents are very supportive of her and helped her ship the bottles to the people that bought them. Her mom is a inspiration to her. One day Sarah and her mom were on a hike and Sarah told her mom about her water bottle idea. Her mom said “what’s stopping you from doing that?” Sarah agreed so she went home and made her first sketch of a S’well bottle. She sent it to the factory to be made and she had her first S’well bottle. Her first S’well bottle was a 17 oz in Ocean Blue. They faced many challenges. One challenge that they face was that they outgrew their office, they outgrew their systems and they outgrew their website. They were running a 100 million dollar company off of spreadsheets. A cool thing that they do at S’well is to put a apostrophe after a s. According to Sarah Kauss the first year was a learning lab, she went to seventeen trade shows and talked to people and asked them what they wanted to have in their life. Sarah went through rough times, but she still never gave up. What could you do if you knew you could not fail?
Today I’m gonna talk about my Site Visit. A Site Visit is also required for Capstone. My Site Visit was in the city at the S’well headquarters. I learned a lot about tradition at S’well and about all the new bottles. Everybody there was very nice and welcoming. It was also place where I would want to work. When I got there I walked around with my mom for a little and got to see all the new designs that were coming out. There are at least one of every bottle on display. They have a studio where they come up with designs, a photo shoot room, little offices for calls and interview and many more rooms. They also have a cafeteria with tables for people to sit at. A cool thing I learned is that each conference room has a name that a S’well bottle is named, one room was called Lilywood and they had the Lilywood S’well bottle displayed outside the room. Another cool thing I learned is that every employee has a S’well traveler with their name on it where it would say S’well. I learned a lot of cool things and I would one hundred percent go back.
Today the whole fifth grade went to Ellis Island. I thought that this was a cool experience. First we took a 15 minute ferry to Ellis Island. We got off and got to walk around the first floor for a little. On the first floor there were little areas with bags that people took and information about the baggage room. Next we met our tour guide and went upstairs to the great hall. He made us take the physical and legally test. If you didn’t know something like your rights from your lefts he showed you what would happen. After we were done with the tour we walked around for a little bit then we watched a short film about what it was like to immigrate to America, The people who narrated it were people who were immigrates. When the short film was over we had lunch. We got to sit outside and enjoy the nice view which was the Statue of Liberty and a skyline. When people where done eating they took pictures around the water. Next we went inside and went to the third floor where there were rooms of where people stayed at Ellis Island, clothes people wore and many other things. Finally, we took a 45 minute ferry ride back to the buses. While we were on the ferry we passed the Statue of Liberty and stopped while people took pictures. When the ferry the ferry ride was over we got on the buses and headed back to school.
Today I’m going to be talking about my Capstone interview. An interview is required for Capstone. Last week I went into the city and went to the S’well headquarters. I interviewed someone name Kristin Ross. She is the SVP of corporate sales and partnerships. Kristin started working at S’well before it got popular so she was able to give me a bunch of information about how S’well grew. She also reports directly to Sarah Kauss who is the founder and CEO of S’well. I found her very helpful because she has a very important job and was able to tell me all about how S’well became so successful and how each and every employee made a difference. She gave me all the information that I need and if she couldn’t answer the question she would ask someone else who would know the answer. Overall, she was very helpful and gave me all the information I needed and more.
Today the whole fifth grade went to a Peruvian restaurant in Port Chester with our spanish teacher called Pollo a La Brasa Misti Restaurant. Each class was split up into table of 4-6 people and each table got to try each food if they wanted to. When we first got to the restaurant we got bread baskets. Soon after all the dishes came to our table.
We ate the food in a family style way. Each person took a little off the plate and tried the food. If we wanted more and everyone got some who wanted some we were able to take more.
I thought that the food was good and I got to try new things from a different culture. When we first got the the restaurant we got a basket of bread, which I thought was really good. My favorite dishe were Pollo Saltado, Lomo Saltado and Tallarin Saltado de carne. I thought that the food was really good overall and was a really fun experience.
Today I’m going to be talking about how I chose my main inquiry question and my sub questions for Capstone. The first thing I did was do some research and found somethings that would be a good inquiry question. After I did that I met with Ms. Edwards and she helped me come up with a main inquiry question which is: What are the key factors that helped to the company’s success? Once I figured out my inquiry question it was time to figure out my sub questions. I went back to my research and worked around that. I came up with my sub question and now I’m ready to start my research!
Today I’m going to be talking about my Where I’m From poem. 2 weeks ago my teacher assigned a assignment to write a poem about where you are from. We got a packet and the last page had a guideline. You could also use a online one. I used the online one and filled out all the information. When my poem was made I copied and pasted the poem into drive and I edited it. I really like how the poem turned out!
Today I am going to be talking about how I chose my topic for Capstone. Capstone is a project that the 5th graders do at the end of the year. To begin, each person has to pick a few different topics that they are interested in to research. Eventually they have to narrow it down and choose just one topic. At first, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. After talking with my mom we had a few ideas, some of which include; Snapchat, Dylan’s Candy Bar and Hamilton. However, these ideas weren’t quite what I was wanting to do, so I kept thinking. I thought back to the projects that people did last year and was inspired by one, S’well. Before I decided to stick with this topic I thought about how I could make sure that I would be able to do a Interview and a site visit, both are required. I also had a back up choice which was Hamilton. Next, I did some pre-research and found on the S’well website some information and found a article. Finally, I had my teacher approve it!