In a nationwide study of Americans’ attitudes towards Indigenous Peoples, Reclaiming Native Truth found that “Contemporary Native Americans are, for the most part, invisible in the United States” (Reclaiming Native Truth, 2018). Indeed, Indigenous voices are frequently missing or misrepresented in American society—especially in education. Such lack of accurate education on the history and modern life of Indigenous communities fosters a breeding ground of misconceptions and stereotypes that hinder support for Indigenous issues. Accordingly, this research project seeks to understand how Indigenous Peoples are represented within the K–curriculum of a local school district. Through analysis of social studies textbooks and interviews with district teachers, the study aims to reveal areas of growth to ultimately expand students’ awareness of the historical and contemporary experiences of Indigenous Peoples.

Since I was in middle school, I dreamed about the business courses that I could take once I entered high school. However, after my freshman year at Paly, there are no more business specific elective courses to take despite my best friend having an entire pathway to choose courses from during her time as a student at Gunn HS, located within our same school district. This project will track and follow the requirements for bringing more business opportunities to the Paly campus via DECA or adding more courses in order to understand the systemic functioning of a high school campus.

There's a recurring problem that special education programs and their students are not treated with equal understanding. Students in the special education program deserve an equal opportunity to learn and achieve, but there is a problem with understanding how to teach students with physical and learning disabilities that benefits them and their unique individual learning style. This project dives into that idea of universal learning and ways that inclusion and education about disabilities can affect special education programs. During the project students will complete a survey on their experiences with inclusion and disabilities in the learning environment to show the gap of knowledge and understanding about learning and inclusion in schools.

Historically autism research has been conducted primarily on males. Because of this there is a significant gap on the knowledge known about how autism presents itself in women. For years diagnostic tests have been targeted at the autistic symptoms that men have, simply assuming that women have the same symptoms. Because of this many women with ASD are not being identified which is negatively impacting their lives. The goal of my project is to research the signs and symptoms of girls with ASD in an effort to form a clearer view of autism in girls. This will make it easier for women with autism to receive the support they need.

Reproductive healthcare is critical to public and individual safety. Limited access to healthcare disproportionately affects Women of Color. This disparity creates health gaps, putting Women of Color at a higher risk of maternal mortality and contracting STIs. This is extremely relevant because Black women are four times more likely to die during childbirth than White women (CDC, 2007-2016). The goal is to identify how Black women are being discriminated against in the reproductive healthcare system. Through analyzing historical documents and scientific studies, this research paper will identify the history of distrust between People of Color and healthcare officials and explain viable options that the American government has to increase public and personal safety for these women.

There is a direct correlation between mental health and birth control usage, yet research in this field is vastly underfunded and minimized because it pertains to female health. The field of health is - and has been for centuries - dominated by men; research for ailments, diseases and medicine disproportionately gives precedence to men, proffering a lack of proper treatment for women. Birth control provides a potential remedy to a series of health affairs for women: mental (PTSD, depression, anxiety), reproductive, and even physical (acne, PMS, PMDD, weight loss/gain), etc. As hormone cycles perpetually affect women’s health, understanding and encouraging research into women’s physiology and endocrinology is of the utmost importance. An incorrect or improper understanding of women’s health brings forth serious, prospective risks and harm towards half of the population’s well-being. This advanced research project illustrates the disparities of treatment in medicine between the sexes and the collective, discriminatory regard towards female health. This project will illuminate these issues through the process of analyzing statistical and qualitative data provided by medical health professionals and will execute a survey for women and female high school students in the Bay Area who have experienced treatment with birth control.

Even in the 21st century, “modern slavery” or “human trafficking” is still extremely active and making about $150.2 billion per year through the 25 million people being enslaved. This “hidden crime,” human trafficking, is a major problem in the world because so many traffickers force people, especially females, into sex, labor, and other different acts to make a profit for traffickers while the world barely can recognize or identify the victims of these terrible crimes. Because of the lack of knowledge about human trafficking, many people are not cautious and thus become victims. In addition, because people do not know how to identify victims, fewer victims are rescued. There needs to be evidence-based research on what people already know about human trafficking, and about identifying and helping victims. This survey will also investigate what people believe are the best methods of raising awareness on this subject. This survey is digitally sent to people of all different ages, genders, and ethnicities.

Universal preschool is an international movement that uses public funding to ensure that all families get a high-quality preschool education. In the United States, there is a prevalent achievement gap. Research has shown that many children of color and students from low-income families do not get the skills they need to succeed academically due to their inaccessibility to preschool. Therefore, attending high-quality preschool students who are of lower socioeconomic status could gain five months of additional reading, and children of color could gain seven months of learning, which would close the achievement gap to about forty-one percent. This research looks at databases, texts, and fieldnotes to gather information about how effective universal preschool is in closing the achievement gap.

Universal healthcare should be a natural right, bestowed upon a child at birth; however, there continues to be a substantial problem in our world surrounding the variance in healthcare systems between different countries. Millions more children die in underdeveloped countries in comparison to the United States. There needs to be more solid research done on this issue in order to come up with impactful solutions. This project will be a correlation research and content analysis to determine which organizations make the most direct impact on healthcare provided to children in developing nations.

In today’s society, harmful beauty standards are everywhere, portrayed most significantly in the media and in stores. There is very little size representation in the fashion industry in the United States. The idea that smaller sizes are more desirable reaches young women and girls around the country and causes them to adopt toxic body image mentalities, leading to potential eating disorders. If this wasn't bad enough, bringing in another variable, globalization, can prove to be even more harmful, as the effects of beauty standards are seen all over the world, including Japan. This research paper analyzes the extent to which the American fashion industry exported toxic body image to Japan, inducing eating disorders. The extent to which there is a direct connection can be discovered through correlational research and analyzing the other factors that cause eating disorders in Japan.