Capstone Project Proposal Draft

Name of student: Brendan

Date: October 4
Teacher: Ms. Lacroix
Capstone strand I have chosen is Service
Proposed title for my project: Cooking culture

What is your inquiry question that interests you for further research? It should be a question that
connects with a purpose, passion or personalized area of interest for you. This is a question that
you cannot just google an answer for. Please see examples from your Capstone booklet.
My inquiry question is:

How does asian culture diversify through the use of food and what history is behind them?

Rationale/context: Detail your reasons for choosing this inquiry question. Explain WHY you are
choosing to investigate this topic as a major area of focus. How does this area of inquiry connect
to your passion(s), purpose? Why is it of personal interest to you?

The main focus of my capstone is to institute and teach others about diversity. In society today
media and an overall population tends to focus on a certain area of society. I want to be able
to introduce a new side of asia with something I am passionate in which is food. Food itself is
something everyone can understand to be a connection through people and culture,
something that brings people together with a feeling of compassion. My goal in cooking dishes
from these cultures is to see what the world has to offer overall and I believe by doing
something so understood by society my message and goal will be easier achieved.

Background: What background knowledge/connections/prior learning do you have in this

area of inquiry?

As a overall human being I love food, I love the taste, textures and the feels they instill. But
more than that I feel and like to see the deeper meaning in food, the history, the why and the
what, like why certain flavours might bring you back to a happy memory. The general emotion
that surrounds the word food and that’s one of the very reason I cook. Cooking is something I
value as it’s a means of bringing people happiness through their stomach.

Career connections: What is your intended career area at this point in time? What
connections does this inquiry question have to your life, academic and/ or career goals?

At this point in time I feel lost in the sense of I have no determined career path nor do I
understand my own passions or interests. I feel almost worried with the time that I have and

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 the pressure because I simply have no path I feel connected with. But regarding my inquiry
question I was interested to choose that would include others. My main goal regarding my
idea and the focus was always to connect people in some sense whether that be with
something people could relate to or something to help others. In the long run persuing a
career path that will help others in any way or form would make me most happy.

Interdisciplinary and core competencies connections: What subject areas and core
competencies will be connected with your project? Outline and explain the connections.

Personal awareness and Responsibility

Strengths:
1. I am learning to take care of myself.

In the past I felt like I lacked personal care or personal importance in the first place. I was
always focused on caring for others and my friends and their wellbeing and realized that I
lacked the attention of my own. As time passed, I convinced myself that that was just who I
was and there was no going around that. But as I began to focus more on others, I felt like I
began to lose myself, I wasn’t looking into what made me happy and didn’t do what I really
wanted to do and, in the end, I lost sight of my own personal wellbeing. Only recently did this
change, maybe it was something major that happened in my life but during the summer of
2023 I decided that I wanted to be happy. In the short span of only a couple months I began
to change my lifestyle, go out more for myself, take care of myself and my health, but more
importantly, I surrounded myself with people who truly made me happy.

2. I use a variety of strategies to manage my personal wellbeing.

To take care of one's wellbeing seems almost broad to me, something that doesn’t really have
its definitive answer to what to do. But to me it really is finding those small things that add
up, not only do I do more things and have found more hobbies to help my mental wellbeing,
but also did I need to focus on my physical wellbeing as well. I began to put myself in the gym
again, something I was never able to be consistently on but still I pushed myself and time
after time I fell in love with that feeling, the sweat and energy pushing through every
movement. In time I felt myself progress physically but also emotionally, I felt good about
myself through something healthy.

Area of improvement:
1. I understand my decisions and actions can affect me

When I look back at my history in school throughout every assignment and every interaction, I
lacked the sense of care or importance of my education. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to go into
post-secondary or peruse something after school but rather, since it wasn’t something in
front of me, I never was able to see that as a world I was living in. But only recently have I
seen the consequences of my actions where my lack of effort has now formed into the stress
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and worry about being somewhere where I haven’t even looked at myself.

Social Responsibility
Strengths:
1. I value diversity, defend human rights, advocate for others, and act
ethically in all my interactions, including online
Throughout my lifetime I have met a diverse set of people, people from around the world,
people who do not exactly hold the same opinion as the next, but overall, I have seen what
makes this world a whole. Diversity is something that follows us daily and something that
benefits our lives even when people lack that same picture. But with an understanding of
diversity comes a larger understanding of people. In some cases, there are those who do not
see why a certain kind of person should be treated the same as you and me, but once you
come down to it, these people are no different from us. That is why I believe in the defense of
human rights, because we are no different and should not be treated differently

2. I can identify and appreciate different perspectives on issues and use and
evaluate strategies to resolve them
I grew up in a place where everyone's opinion mattered whether that be a good or bad thing
but with that, I have learned the nature of everyone and to respect whatever opinion
someone might hold. Everyone is different and the issues we face surrounding those people
take a different look to see solution.

Areas of improvement
1. I am aware of my community and environment and work independently
and collaborate for the benefit of others
I often struggle with the concept of being acutely aware of my community and environment
while simultaneously wanting to provide a balance between independent work and
collaborative efforts for the better of others. Finding this balance is a constant challenge, as I
aim to contribute meaning to my surroundings while honoring my individuality and values.

Critical thinking
Strengths:
1. I can analyze and make defensible judgements, draw conclusions and
consider a variety of perspectives.
It is known that I carry around my own strong opinions but doing so I can draw something
stronger with the opinion of others. When faced with an issue I am slow to act not because I
do not know what to do but because I want to be sure what I am doing is seen as the right
thing in my eyes. When given multiple sides I can decipher the rights and wrongs between
each party and from there draw conclusions. I understand that different people have different
perspectives and with that I want to understand everyone equally rather than coming to
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something that is simply untrue.

2. I can analyze and critique my work and my learning

Throughout school I wasn’t a strong or quick learner but found a strength in fixing my
mistakes. I only came to realize this during my tenth year of school in an English class that I
dread. English were one of my weaker subjects and I walked into class knowing this but soon I
realized that it didn’t have to be something I was weak in if I saw my own mistakes and was
something I did. That was the class where I realized through facing my weakness and my
mistakes did, I understood where and how I could improve.

Area of improvement:
1. I can access my progress

I simply do not see my progression sometimes, rather it be physical, or a change in mindset.

Progression is something I sometimes refuse. This occurs due to a lack of self-confidence
because I believe that I am simply incapable of change. This is why I can almost see myself
being that same person that I was 3 years ago all the way to grade 9. Since then, I do not see
myself changing and do not know how to accept it. It does not matter if I have or have not
because I simply feel like I am less than that to do so

Creative thinking
Strengths:
1. I can take my ideas evaluate, develop, and refine them and make
something productive out of them
When entering a new task, I am about to evaluate my situation and form visual ideas for
diverse types of end products. When I get an idea, I like to see how a full picture goes through
its difficulties before concluding to one final product that I can be happy with, with it be
something tangible or rather something else. Even with something finished I like to look at
what it could be in the sense that I might be able to add more or take some stuff away to
further perfect the product.

2. I can persevere, and understand that failure can be productive

To many, failure is where most things end, a stopping point to be seen as a sign to quit or
move on, but it is much more. At an early age I would always think this and feel a reality
where this was the only real option until I started to grow as a person. As time passed, I
realized that failure was not a dead-end but a roadblock on a highway. There would be things
to slow you down but in the end through those roadblocks you venture onto much bigger and
change as a person.

Area of improvement
1. I can create new and unique ideas that may provide new perspectives that
influence how people think about topics

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Overall, I do not consider myself a person with many new ideas but rather but off older or
suggested ideas. I am not one to be very imaginative nor do I conceive much of a strong
opinion in any sense with whatever topic that might be. I catch myself with that, even with
things that I find passionate about my outward lack of opinion can come off belittling or that I
simply do not care. It is something I need to work on and something I look at as one of the
main flaws I see in myself. Rather than producing something on my own I tend to always be
looking for inspiration, whether that be another opinion to confirm my own or just a style of
art because I lack the understanding of my own. In the end I feel the lack of this
independence and in the long term it affects my creativity for innovative ideas.

Communication
Strengths:
1. I can engage in deep and meaningful inquiry for a variety of purposes and
audiences
People see me as someone who lacks professionalism, someone who only knows how to go
off and have fun, but I feel different from that. In my life I have had to deal with many
shortcomings in my life which have brought me to an absolute low. But with this I feel like I
have gained experience, rather than looking at the past to drag me down, I take my issues as
a lesson to connect and communicate with others. Whatever the conversation follows I feel I
can keep that professionalism, when necessary. To different people, a deep and meaningful
inquiry can be taken differently. I feel like I can adjust to those differences, realizing that
everyone in their own way is different and requires different things.

2. I can work with other students to plan, inquire, and solve problems

With a struggle of independence comes my strength in working with others. I do not have
much of an opinion but with that I make up for it by being able to work in groups and connect
everyone’s ideas to one. I can successfully bend and tweak others' ideas in a bigger sense to
create something more refined where everyone can see equal footing.

Area of improvement:
1. I can reflect on the processes of learning and share what I have learned.
Learning is something I find interesting, sometimes I understand quickly, sometimes I do not,
and I cannot understand why. Even when I feel confident in a certain area, I feel like what I
learn is not something I can put into words but seen visually. I am much more of a visual
learner than one of a verbal and that comes into the same case with teaching. I cannot teach
someone something I can only understand in a visual sense rather than a deep-rooted sense. I
do it because I know how to, not because I understand why.

Personal and Cultural Identity

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 Strengths:
1. I understand how what I value has and will shape my choices
People often belittle my values of people; I hear about the lack of future that comes with
valuing others but in my mind, I feel accomplishment doing so. I understand that what I value
is simply different from others, their goal is always so different from mine. That can be
because I simply do not know what I am doing but what I see are connections that can take
me to places that I cannot even imagine. People are what I value, something I hold dear to my
heart and something that has been in my heart for a long time in my life. Not because of the
tangible benefits that come with relationships but rather the intangible ones that affect you
overall. From what I have experienced up to this point I hold this value with pride and
gratefulness for where I have gotten because of them.

2. I understand how to use my strengths and abilities to my advantage, and I

can explain how I use them to contribute to my community.
I do not see myself having many strengths nor do I have strong strengths at all. But with that
comes the improvisation of my own general ability. Though I lack strong skills, I make up for
using everything I can and tweaking that to my advantage to accomplish my goal. I do not
need traditional solutions but rather I am able to create my own with what I have. My benefit
in the community comes in that same form. I do not see the ability to follow others but rather
do something people under look to make a larger impact.

Area of improvement:
1. I understand what is important to me.

Though I do see what I value I lack the understanding of what I really see as important,
something that, even if I should be seeing, I simply do not. I realize this issue and have run
into what can only be my biggest roadblock yet, that being that I lack seeing the importance
of post-secondary. This is not because I do not see the point or do not want to go but rather, I
cannot process the importance and how it might affect me in the future, simply put, I feel
stuck in the present. Being told that I lack care for my education after a big fallout was a big
moment in my life, not because I took it in offense but because it was true. My life is always
seeing in the moment and sometimes I do not think about my future at all but one day I hope
to accomplish that.

Capstone Presentation medium: select one or more project mediums you wish to use to
present your project. Outline and give details about how you will present your project once
completed. You may use a combination of mediums.
o Electronic portfolio: Prezi or PPT
o Physical portfolio
o Website
o imovie presentation

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 o YouTube channel

I will be creating a youtube channel dedicated towards towards teaching an audience of

people about cultural diversity in asia

Description of my Capstone project. Specific Project Details of the Capstone Project: what
will you research, create, study, produce, solve, investigate? What product will be produced
at the end of this project for evaluation. Write a one-page description outlining your
proposal.

For my capstone I intend to make a full Youtube series revolved around different parts if asia
and the culture of food surrounding them. Each episode I will devote my time into a different
culture and cook a specific dish. Addition to that I be talking about the history of the ethical
background and why dishes come to be and an overall reason of why. Before each episode
however I will put time into the reasearch to have a further understand of a general
background of the lifestyle, dietary needs, and resources that come with each dish from a
geographical viewpoint.

As the first video of the channel my main focus will be an introduction to the channel, an
overview of the types of videos I’ll make and a large portion of general knowledge. The first
episode will mainly be a learning point for me and a learning phase for both recording and
editing. From how I think of the pilot I will adjust and tweak my issues to something more
refined and work through from there.

Episode 1 is where I begin to get more comfortable and attempt the cooking aspect as well as
the informative aspect. With the same short introduction I plan to intro the country of origin
and second the dish. I want talk about an overview about the history impact the resources
have in that chosen culture and also how they are important on the graphical sense. In that I
mean like a certain ingredient is used rather than something else, is it easier to farm or find in
that part of the world? Do they consume it for physical benefit? Do they consume it to prosper
over harsh enviroment? All these all factors that go into cooking and with that I want other
people to know that as well. After going over a large information section of the video I plan to
cook not with the purpose of cooking but given a visual sense to each culture. Rather than
listening to me speak and taking in intangeble information I wanted something relatable.
Cooking and food is something almost everyone can relate to so in doing so I want others to
see the same passion through something they love.

Following the rest of the series I intent to follow the same overall format. But in that sense I
want to make small changes in things like the production for each episode so it doesn’t just
turn into some copy and paste for the whole series. Each episode will also have a special
guest to almost represent the culture in which the video is based in. In doing I want to spread
some personal stories others have with food to show that we all relate to food in different ways
and that its meaning on different people.

Resources/ Technology/Skills: Make an assessment of the resources, technology and

skills you will need to be able to complete this project. What is your plan to be able to
access/learn all of the resources necessary to achieve completion of this project? Detail

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your plans.

As a YouTube series I Require the needed equiptment to record videos. I intend to buy a
microphone for more quality audio and the ingredients as well as I decide on what dishes I
intend to make. But as well I will need to edit both videos and audio to ensure quality content
that I will be happy with. Cooking wise I do have the experience to be comofortable enough in
the kitchen to cook while also being informative.

Mentors/Community Connections: What types of mentor(s)/community connections will

you need to help you complete your capstone project? How will your mentor(s) help you?
What is your plan to access the mentorship/community connections necessary for this
project?

For my plan there are areas that I am still unconfident in, the technical stancee with all the
shooting and editing, but also some of the culinary as well. From there I intend to get in
contact with someone of experience whether that be a head cook to a restraunt or someone
on the social scene with exxperience in video production. In reaching out I hope to get a few
tips to help me along my journy.

Project limitations: What are some project limitations and potential obstacles that you foresee
that might affect progress with your Capstone Project?

Reguarding limitations for my project I feel that I am limited to quality with the technology that I
have at hand. Of course the project won’t turn out as clean as I hope but that is something I
understood going into this project. Besides that I don’t intend to run into many issues along in
my project.

Other considerations: List and detail any other related information/ considerations about
your project that you feel should be included in your project proposal.

Another consideration I am worried of is the lack of general resources and unknowing of

where to get some of these ingredients like certain spices or meats.

References:

Attach a REFERENCE LIST. Your list should be written using correct APA formatting.
An example is provided on page 21 of your Capstone booklet.

Berry, E. M., Arnoni, Y., & Aviram, M. (2011). The Middle Eastern and biblical origins of the Mediterranean
diet. Public health nutrition, 14(12A), 2288-2295.

Cadiogan, D. J., Dy, S. C. H., Opaco, C. J. L. T., Rodriguez, R. D., Tan, J. T. T., Villanueva, K. A., &
Mercado, J. M. T. (2021). Manyisig: the culinary heritage significance of sisig in Angeles City, Pampanga,
Philippines. International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science, 24, 100347.

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Shoda, S. (2021). Seeking prehistoric fermented food in Japan and Korea. Current Anthropology, 62(S24),
S242-S255.

Li, J. R., & Hsieh, Y. H. P. (2004). Traditional Chinese food technology and cuisine. Asia Pacific journal of
clinical nutrition, 13(2).

Ninomiya, K. (2015). Science of umami taste: adaptation to gastronomic culture. Flavour, 4(1), 13.

Pilcher, J. M. (2023). Food in world history.

Renna, M., Rinaldi, V. A., & Gonnella, M. (2015). The Mediterranean Diet between traditional foods and
human health: The culinary example of Puglia (Southern Italy). International Journal of Gastronomy and
Food Science, 2(2), 63-71.

Wijaya, S. (2019). Indonesian food culture mapping: a starter contribution to promote Indonesian culinary
tourism. Journal of Ethnic Foods, 6(1), 1-10.

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