What is Apollo
In ancient mythology, Apollo was the god of, well, almost everything: music, poetry, medicine, art, knowledge, sun and light, and more. In a more contemporary sense, it speaks to NASA's lunar missions. The name "Apollo" is to convey the multifaceted elements of this course. At its core, Apollo infuses language arts, social studies, and art. But there's also a lot more involved, including higher order thinking skills, independent learning and accountability, along with other advantages often not found in a traditional classroom. These are showcased in the students projects, where choice is at the forefront of all learning. The students are given complete creative freedom to learn about what they find most interesting. There is a lack of formal instruction, it is left open to what the students choose to research.
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About Me
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Hi! My name is Thomas Duffy and I am a Junior at Central York High School, the graduating class of '25. I chose to do Apollo for.a multitude of reasons but the big one was CHOICE. I wanted the freedom to choose what I wanted to learn about on the daily basis and creating these projects have really given me the opportunity to do that. A huge part of my life at the moment is my digital art and photography. As well as 3D digital art and advertising in media I am focusing much more on the advertising and digital media as a whole.
With personal photos of York and the surrounding area, to Boston and New York. Documenting my life through imagery is something that I love to do and creating photos with stories to tell future generations is something that I would like to focus on.
With personal photos of York and the surrounding area, to Boston and New York. Documenting my life through imagery is something that I love to do and creating photos with stories to tell future generations is something that I would like to focus on.
SOPHOMORE YEAR OVERVIEW 2022-2023
This year I focused on artistic liberty and the ways that has changed over time. I explored everything from late 1700s paintings to hosting my own gallery space and donating all money raised to Make A Wish. This year was my introduction to Apollo.
Project One
Film in War
Inspired heavily by the current events in Ukraine, I chose this subject because I wanted to research the effects media and journalists have on public perception of war. I ended up creating not only a physical magazine but I also created a photo set of myself. My intent with this project was to contextualize and doing a written project just made the most sense to me.
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Project Two
NYC JazzAn interview with the daughter of a prominent club owner in NYC spurred this idea. Susan Rothschild and her perspective of how a lavishly wealthy child with everything she could ever want decided the drug riddled, erotic art scene was the one for her. I researched the treatment of POC artists and how the perspective of white jazz enjoyers shifted with the popularization of Jazz as a whole.
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Project Three
American Transcendentalism
A series of self produced self portrait images along with a five transcribed poems and one of my own original poems inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson. This project was heavily inspired by the movement away from god and more into the study of beauty.
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Project Four
GalleryI hosted a gallery for my final project connecting multiple different perspectives on my art for synthesis. I also wrote a series of write ups describing my photography for English class and added multiple facts throughout the writing.
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JUNIOR YEAR OVERVIEW 2023-2024
This year I focused on one goal, exploring cardiology and taking a in depth dive into the history of the Blue Baby surgery. Thus, its one giant project broken up into four parts which are listed below.
Part One
Dr. Vricella Interview
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Part Two
Dr. Murphy Interview - Archive Visit
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Part Three
Common App. - College visits, Video documentaryFor this project I had to connect everything together because the topic was Reasoning! I focused on tying two elements, my photography and heart defect, into one essay for my common application to college. I also wrote my resume for Smart Futures.
For Art I continued working on my video, tying in all the footage I've taken over the past two projects. and compiled the footage into a 6 minute video. I also toured two colleges, Johns Hopkins and Villanova, I liked Nova's campus more but obviously Hopkins has the environment I am looking for both are considered reaches - Hopkins being a top 10 is like almost impossible to get into but I can dream. |
Part Four
Revisions to essay, and mini-documentary submissionsFor my final project of Junior year was Synthesis I took the time to learn and explore how to share my video and gain feedback on my video as well as rewrite a narrative essay I had written in sixth grade.
I did this to show growth on both ends, both exploring how to grow in my film making and research and by showing how I have grown personally in the way I write and tell stories through my words. English I did a rewrite, showing how I have grown and comparing my current writing style and showing how I have grown since sixth grade. |
"Audentes Fortuna Iuvat"
Virgil the Poet