Breaking the Sun Barrier is a project that aims to provide sun safety education and resources to vulnerable populations in California. Our project has two action plans, our first goal is to collect 500 bottles for a sunscreen drive. The donations from the drive will be sent to Simply the Basics, an organization that will distribute the sunscreen to low income and homeless Californians. During the second phase of our project, we will visit several elementary schools in the Bay Area and teach them the importance of sun safety through a short presentation. Ultimately, this project contributes to benefiting public health and increasing access to preventative care for those who need it most.

Mental health challenges are a growing concern for adolescents, particularly in high-pressure academic environments like schools in the Bay Area. Despite increasing awareness, stigma and gaps in access to resources continue to hinder effective support for teens. Addressing this issue, my project aims to bridge these gaps by partnering with Jose Ordonez, a Student and Family Engagement specialist at a Bay Area High School in order to educate students about how to support their peers in regards to mental health. By partnering with school officials and community organizations, this initiative seeks to foster an inclusive dialogue about mental health and ensure that students and their families have the tools needed to prioritize emotional well-being.

Our project aims to educate individuals about the impact of affordable housing through compelling video stories. By sharing real-life experiences, we hope to foster empathy and understanding among people with stable incomes, housing, and access to basic necessities. The videos will highlight how affordable housing has positively transformed lives, providing stability, opportunity, and a sense of dignity. We will showcase these stories at community venues, meetings, and on a website, ensuring accessibility to a broad audience. Through personal narratives, we want to humanize the issue, showing that affordable housing is more than just a policy—it’s a lifeline for many. By creating emotional connections, we encourage individuals to support or advocate for housing initiatives that promote stronger, more inclusive communities. Ultimately, our goal is to inspire action by making the importance of affordable housing clear and relatable to those who may not have experienced housing insecurity firsthand.

My project is all about making reading more engaging and accessible for students and young kids in my community. I’ll be helping with Read Across America at a high school in the Bay Area or local elementary schools in early March, and I’ll also lead storytime sessions at local libraries from mid-February to April. The goal is to create fun, interactive reading experiences that help kids connect with books in a meaningful way. Whether it’s through read-alouds, discussions, or activities, I want to make reading something they look forward to. I’ll gather feedback from students, teachers, and librarians, as well as take notes on engagement and participation, to see what’s working and what could be improved. In the end, this project is about more than just reading—it’s about building confidence, sparking curiosity, and strengthening the community’s connection to books and literacy.

A major problem is false imprisonment. It strips humans of their freedom and violates their rights but this also comes with another problem, it can cause serious negative psychological effects. False convictions can cause many psychological problems with people, some being depression, anxiety, and PTSD. It alsoit also comes with stigma when it comes to the reintegration process of the exonerated. This does not directly affect marginalized groups because racial bias, and faulty evidence raise the likelihood of false imprisonment. Research is essential to highlight the mental health consequences that come with false imprisonment to show the importance of desperate reform. The human toll of false imprisonment helps to form the core reasons for gathering interest in policies to help create reform.

This study examines the impact of the Berryessa BART station on housing prices in San Jose amid the city’s growing affordability crisis. Utilizing housing market data from Redfin and Zillow, a Difference-in-Difference (DiD) approach is used to to compare housing price trends within a 2-mile radius of the station (treatment group) to similar unaffected areas (control group). Additionally, a Hedonic Price Model will assess how factors like proximity to transit, property size, and neighborhood amenities influence housing values. While existing research shows that new transit stations generally increase property values and demand, they can also displace lower-income residents and widen socioeconomic gaps. However, the specific short- and long-term effects of the Berryessa BART station within San Jose’s unique economic environment—characterized by a tech-driven boom and housing shortages—remain underexplored. This study aims to fill this gap by analyzing how the Berryessa station affects housing prices, availability, and displacement patterns in San Jose. The findings will inform urban planning strategies that balance transit development with housing equity and affordability, promoting sustainable and inclusive growth in the region.

Women have made great strides in the 20th century in gaining access to education and careers. Since the 1980s, the number of women getting bachelor’s degrees has matched and even surpassed that of men. But the story is different in STEM–women have persistently obtained less than 25% of degrees in engineering, physics, and computer science. This paper looks at what factors influence female students taking advanced math and science courses at a Bay Area high school to decide to pursue STEM majors and careers. High school is an important area of focus because studies have shown that students’ intended majors upon entering college play a large role in deciding what they will major in–thus, if girls in high school aren’t interested in pursuing STEM, then they probably won’t do it in college. To obtain both qualitative and quantitative data, a Google survey will be sent to students in advanced STEM classes at Paly that will ask them about their interest in majors and careers, about their self-confidence in math, and whether any of their parents or guardians have a STEM background. Publicly available data from the California Department of Education will also be examined. This data shows CAASPP test scores, and course enrollment by gender, to see whether female student math achievement and advanced STEM course enrollment is higher at Palo Alto High School compared with the rest of the state.

Cobalt is an essential component of lithium-ion batteries, which power countless devices Americans use daily, from smartphones and laptops to electric vehicles and public transportation systems. However, much of this cobalt is mined under exploitative conditions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), often by children working in hazardous environments. This research investigates how contemporary American consumerism influences the educational opportunities of child miners in the DRC. Using case study research and content analysis, it examines both the qualitative and quantitative effects of cobalt mining on child miners’ education and quality of life. It also analyzes U.S. media and marketing to uncover recurring themes related to the promotion of lithium-ion devices and their disconnection from the cobalt crisis. Data is drawn from policy reports, corporate documents, advertisements, and expert interviews, then coded to identify patterns linking U.S. consumption to its impact on Congolese communities. This research highlights the human cost of technological convenience and advocates for increased corporate accountability, fair trade practices, and ethical solutions. By fostering awareness, it empowers consumers to demand change, ensuring progress does not come at the expense of vulnerable populations.

The goal of my project is to examine how human actions like habitat destruction increases the risk of invasion by alien species to underdeveloped/indigenous communities. These population are especially at risk since they have less resources and defenses put in place to minimize damage from one of these invasions. Additionally communities of indigenous peoples rely heavily on the environment for there livelihood which can be thoroughly disputed through invasion. I am attempting to draw parallels to these topic and show people how actions they previous thought was harmless (at least to people) can actually cause a lot of damage.

Change happens when we speak and our vote is our voice. Despite voter turnout at an all-time high in 2020 with 66% of eligible voters voting, a third of the population still fails to vote in elections (Hartig, 2023). This problem negatively impacts Americans because the local and national governments fail to represent the will of the people accurately, and not everyone votes. In elections with few votes such as local elections, every vote matters and results could end up changing with an additional 34% of the eligible population voting. A possible cause of this problem is a lack of foundational habits in voting. Just as it was done in Oakland in 2024, lowering the voting age to 16 in local elections could promote more participation in elections (Walsh, 2024). This study investigates 16 and 17-year-olds to find areas of preparation and gaps in election education to find the value of lowering the voting age and increasing voter turnout in younger voters. Data will be collected through an anonymous survey of 16-17 year olds in Palo Alto California and the results of that survey will be analyzed in conjunction with election results from counties that have lowered the voting age such as Oakland County to find parallels in real results and where areas of improvement could be implemented.