For our service project, we aim to improve students’ waste-sorting and disposal behaviors on a high school campus. The overwhelming amount of trash littered on school grounds has caused frustration for staff and students alike, including ourselves. We designed posters with reminders for students to dispose of their trash and created waste-sorting guidelines that displayed images of school-specific food packaging. Additionally, we created an Instagram account, “@bayareascrapp” (Bay Area Sustainability Campaign to Raise Awareness of Plastic Pollution), where we post engaging short-form videos and infographics about proper waste sorting and the effects of plastic waste contamination. These posts feature the perspectives of staff and students. We are also working with an assistant principal to ensure that the new cafeteria, which is currently under construction, is built to support a sustainable brunch and lunch system. We sent a before-survey to school staff and will measure our initiative’s effectiveness by sending an after-survey. These surveys provide qualitative and quantitative data regarding staff feelings, opinions, and ideas about solutions to the trash problem on campus. Additionally, to record a visual difference, we will take photos before our project implementation and again a few months after commencement.

As queer high schoolers, we both noticed the lack of awareness of the LGBTQ+ community in middle schools. As such, we saw the Social Justice Advanced Authentic Research class as our chance to implement meaningful change within our middle school community. The goal of our project is to increase awareness of the LGBTQ+ community by guiding middle school students in a lesson addressing a literary excerpt featuring queer representation. We have partnered with educators from our local middle school community to present the lesson plan to their classes. In preparation for these presentations, we have prototyped the lesson plan and revised it according to expert feedback. To track our students' understanding, they will participate in a pre and post-survey that will ask them relevant questions to terms introduced in or related to the literary excerpt. Additionally, we will ask them to rate their ability to identify positive and negative representations of the LGBTQ+ community. Our project aims to increase their understanding through the lesson between the two surveys.

The overarching goal of our project is to reduce food insecurity in the Bay Area by running a food drive at a public high school. According to Second Harvest Food Bank, 1 in 4 people in Silicon Valley suffer from food insecurity. Notably, in our public school district in Silicon Valley, we implemented food drives during elementary school. However, we observed a discontinuation of these measures by the time students reached high school. To bridge this gap, we are committed to ensuring the continued employment of food drives throughout high school. To ensure participation, we have also created a competition between homeroom classes that has funding from our school’s PTSA. The top three classes that donate the most food get donuts for their class. This competition will foster participation and allow us to better serve the community. The people we are serving are the food insecure in our community, who do not have steady access to sources of food or access to healthy food. We will measure the effectiveness of our food drive by measuring the amount of food we collect. Our group will use a series of Google forms for participants to collect the number of students who donated to evaluate the results of the project.

Our action research project seeks to educate youth at our public high school about the dangers of fentanyl, addressing its rising prevalence in the Bay Area and its potential devastating impacts on our community. We chose to do this project as this issue has impacted youth and continues to be a rising issue. Over the past 20 years, 89.6% of deaths from fentanyl and opioid poisoning happened to young people aged 15-19 (Gaither). Our presentations highlight the urgency for youth education. Our plan is to distribute informative posters throughout our highschool school with QR codes that supply access to more information. Additionally, we plan to give a presentation to a class, educating them on the dangers of fentanyl. We plan to share surveys with them before the presentation and before the implementation of posters, and then after to gather feedback and measure effectiveness, ensuring our message resonates with our audience and drives meaningful change. We plan to combat these issues by working together to educate our youth and save lives from the dangers of fentanyl.

To enhance understanding and acceptance of the LGBTQ+ community among middle school students in the Palo Alto Unified School District. The purpose is to address the existing gap in acceptance between cisgender heterosexual (cishet) and queer students. Drawing inspiration from Katherina A. Rimes's study, the potential of positive representation in boosting self-esteem among queer students is recognized. Anticipated outcomes include fostering a more inclusive environment and contributing valuable insights to the broader educational community. The findings will be presented at the Foothill Research and Service Leadership Symposium and shared with English and Social Studies teachers in middle and high schools.

Our project is creating an intergenerational event program at Channing House, a local retirement home, with teen volunteers, in order to alleviate loneliness in both the teens and the elderly and create lasting bonds.To achieve this, we would have events once a month, including arts and crafts, a tech workshop, and karaoke, all things that are known to alleviate stress and form connections. We will take before and after surveys (most likely on paper for the elderly!) to measure how much of an impact our events had on participants happiness and overall connectivity to the Channing residents and teen volunteers. We have recruited the volunteers and are in the process of scheduling our events. Overall, the goal of our project is to bring together both the teen and elderly communities and help foster meaningful relationships and connections as well as promote wellbeing.

This scientific literature review provides an overview of turmeric, focusing on its botanical characteristics, historical significance, molecular composition, extraction methods, and medicinal properties. Turmeric, known for its distinct health and culinary properties, holds cultural and medicinal importance, with curcumin being its key bioactive compound. Extraction methods range from traditional to modern techniques like supercritical fluid-based extraction. Turmeric exhibits potent anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial, and anti-viral properties, making it promising for medicinal use. It also finds lesser-known applications in agriculture and cosmetics. Despite some limitations, further research is needed to fully exploit turmeric's potential across various fields.

The study explores the relationship between screen time and children's social-emotional development. Amidst rising technology use, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, understanding its potential long-term effects on children's social skills is crucial. Existing studies often focus on physical or psychological impacts, overlooking the specific influence on social interactions. Through extensive research I will put together an informative and simple brochure for parents involving some easy steps to improve screen habits and mitigate the harmful effects of screen time, especially how to improve social interactions. My aim is to help inform parents on how to reduce the risks associated with screen use and ensure that kids are getting the social emotional experience they need to learn and grow.

Despite undoubtedly being the most prosperous state, the Golden State no longer appears that way for a vast number of its residents. The worsening problem of Californian homelessness has plagued people’s well-being for decades and is only continuing to trickle down to affect youth, ultimately causing systemic problems to further permeate through younger generations while destroying youth opportunities for vital higher education. This research aims to address the significant issue of college student homelessness in California. As the problem continues to persist and worsen, potential lies in utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to better process and analyze crucial data that institutions currently are overwhelmed by. The overall goal of these new technology solutions is to better identify, prioritize, and evaluate factors among college students to address the issues and risks of homelessness. The research conducts a literature review of past policy and AI solutions, specifically focusing on AI’s ability to prioritize resource allocation, needs assessment, and risk evaluation research. Through qualitative methods, a comparative analysis of existing literature, research gaps, and subsequent potential impacts will be conducted to find conclusions on current public policy and future solutions. Without directly involving participants, the goal is to provide necessary comparisons and recommendations to improve the use of AI data tools in predicting and addressing college student homelessness, ultimately contributing to the development of effective public policies in California. The potential benefits of this research extend to youth and students, the general community, and policymakers by investigating a pathway to combat the college student homelessness issue, and the findings are intended to inspire essential mindfulness and advocacy within Californian communities and the youth of the future.

The goal is to address the escalating issue of K-12 educators facing mental health challenges, particularly exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The pressing problem impacts both educators and students due to increased stress and workload. While extensive research has been conducted on students' mental health, the study's purpose is to raise awareness about teacher mental health. Its objectives include creating awareness, exploring existing support systems in schools, and proposing enhancements. Analysing both past and current data and conducting cross-district comparisons, I've been able to cultivate a comprehensive understanding of this pressing issue. The study's significance lies in its contribution to the broader comprehension of the profound impact of mental health on eduction. It advocates for the improvement of support system for teachers, aiming to not only benifit the research community but also to raise awareness and offer valuable insights that can enhace support systems for educators, staff, and school districts.