This research paper explores the concerning issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) in California, emphasizing the inadequate response and lack of attention to these cases. Despite a notable increase in MMIW cases, law enforcement remains unresponsive, hindered by the absence of a centralized database. The paper argues for urgent legislative reform, highlighting the shortcomings of current laws such as Public Law 83-280 in protecting Indigenous communities. Employing a hybrid methodology, the research aims to analyze legislation, jurisdictional problems, and community impact. By reviewing diverse sources, including the Sovereign Bodies Institute and FBI reports, the study seeks to identify trends and propose effective solutions for justice and change for MMIW in California.

This research paper investigates the consequences of climate change on Native Hawaiians, emphasizing its impact on the state's housing crisis. The engaging hook presents Samantha DeCorte's concerns about fire hazards in Waianae, highlighting the growing threat posed by climate change. Native Hawaiians, already grappling with housing challenges, face disproportionate effects from climate-induced disasters, hindering their ability to rebuild or relocate. The study explores climate gentrification, specifically the displacement of Native Hawaiian populations, and underscores the urgency of understanding and addressing these interconnected challenges. Utilizing content analysis and a mix of primary and secondary sources, the research aims to raise awareness, identify common themes, and propose solutions for the well-being of Native Hawaiians.

San Francisco faces a severe housing crisis due to soaring living costs, leading to a shortage of affordable homes. Despite building efforts, the demand for affordable housing surpasses the supply, resulting in homelessness and strained communities. This research investigates the root causes, including the impact of land use policies, social injustices, and historical discriminatory practices. The study reviews current initiatives and proposes a case study approach to understand neighborhood-specific complexities. Additionally, it suggests exploring innovative finance models, sustainable building practices, and inclusive housing solutions for a comprehensive analysis and effective resolution of the crisis.

The absence of acknowledgment of LGBTQ individuals in history, particularly in textbooks, perpetuates the erasure of queer voices and contributes to societal misconceptions. The root causes and contemporary implications of this censorship, considering factors such as societal stigma, biases, and language use, are investigated. Drawing on New Historicism, existing literature, letters, and critiques are analyzed to uncover the perspectives of Woolf and Sackville-West, seeking to understand the dynamics of their relationship and its historical interpretation. The paper also addresses social justice issues tied to queer erasure, exploring potential solutions like increased representation and a more nuanced vocabulary in historical analysis. Through qualitative methods, including reading and coding texts, insights into the complex interplay of queer identity, history, and societal perceptions are aimed to be provided.

The persistent issue of gender inequality in the gaming industry. Despite some progress, stereotypical portrayals of women in video games, such as the 'damsel in distress' trope and sexual objectification, continue to prevail. The absence of female representation in game development exacerbates this problem. The study seeks to explore how increasing the number of female game designers can positively impact the portrayal of women in video games and, consequently, influence player perceptions. The significance of this research lies in filling gaps in the understanding of female experiences in the gaming industry and shedding light on the correlation between stereotypical portrayals and the underrepresentation of women in the field. The ultimate goal is to inspire change, encouraging more female creators to contribute to game development and thereby enhance diversity and the accurate portrayal of women in video games.

The focus is on the prevalent issue of bias within facial recognition technology (FRT) algorithms. The research aims to understand the root causes of bias in AI facial recognition algorithms, exploring hypotheses related to imbalanced training data, algorithmic flaws, historical societal biases, and underrepresentation in the technical career field. To investigate this, quantitative analysis of existing databases is employed, focusing on real-world interactions across diverse demographic groups. Statistical tools such as chi-square tests and correlation analysis will be used to assess the significance of observed patterns and correlations, considering factors like race, gender, and age as independent variables. The ultimate goal is to provide insights into the biases present in FRT and propose potential solutions to address this pressing issue, emphasizing the importance of diversity in the development teams behind these technologies.

The Bay Area housing crisis often takes the form of tenant injustices such as wrongful evictions, discrimination, and displacement. Though there are tenant protection laws, these laws are largely inaccessible to lower-income and immigrant tenants. This became the foundation for the birth of our youth organization, BAYTREE (Bay Area Youth for Tenants’ Rights Education and Empowerment), which aspires to make these laws more accessible to all people. To take action, we are going to educate community members about tenants’ rights by hosting both in-person workshops at local community centers and online seminars for accessibility reasons. In the workshops, we will present the background information regarding the Bay Area housing crisis and we will invite expert guest speakers such as lawyers and members of tenants’ rights organizations to talk about the specific rights that tenants have and what to do if one believes that those rights are being violated. We will then close our workshop by recommending community action that can be taken and conducting a closing survey to gather data about the information absorbed by participants. Our goal is to strengthen our community by providing them with the tools needed to successfully combat tenants’ rights violations.

The goal of our project is to enhance literacy among elementary school students, primarily first graders, through cultivating a foundation of enjoyment for reading. Our project proposal is grounded in two essential elements of literacy education: enjoyment and consistency. To achieve this, we have partnered with a first-grade class at Juana Briones Elementary School. Each week, we will lead the first graders through games that prioritize reading, working on vocabulary in discreet ways, and conducting one-on-one reading sessions with students. We chose this project because although literacy rates are increasing in the Palo Alto Unified School District, select target groups still have literacy rates below fifty percent, and results from the ELA portion of the “California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress” test do not show a consistent trend of improvement. Our research has also shown a strong correlation between literacy, academic success, and student well-being, all strong factors in choosing this project. We plan to assess the effectiveness of our initiative through surveys for the students. These anonymous surveys will gauge students' reading enjoyment and preferred activities. Additionally, the teachers we partner with will monitor their students’ joy in reading and provide feedback through notes and observations.

Lack of conviction to act upon an issue is equivalent to ignorance of the problem. Even though plenty of people are aware of the ever-expanding ramifications of the prevalent use of plastic resources, they idly go on without addressing it. Microplastics are an imminent and prevalent issue that harms humans and our environment. Yet, there is a lack of awareness or urgency to respond to the issue as a community. We are working with a middle school teacher to educate her class about the topic; there is a lecture and art project that uses plastic waste to create a chandelier that will be hanging in the students’ classroom as a conversation starter to spread environmental awareness. Through pre- and post-session surveys, our team will measure how much children are more inclined to take part in environmental actions and are conscious of said issue.

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.