Week 12

After talking with State Senator Mendez, it seems as though there is hope for health education in Arizona.  In 2016, Mendez proposed a renewed health education bill to the state legislature that would completely overhaul the previous bill. Mendez's bill would require factual and medically accurate information, student participation, and inclusion of proper methods of contraception. Even though, the bill failed Senator Mendez told me that he would be presenting the bill again next year. He even invited me to work with him over the summer on promoting and revising the bill. I am extremely excited for the opportunity, as hopefully I will be able to use my research to help change health education in Arizona! I encourage anyone who is reading this to keep an eye out for the "Healthy Youth Act" (SB1020). This act could help change the future of health education in Arizona for the better. I am excited to present all of my findings at my presentation this Saturday. Thank you to everyone who followed me on my journey!

Week 11

With my survey finished, I have begun to look at the data for trends. I was not able to make an conclusions regarding the effectiveness of Health Education vs. Abstinence Education, as most survey-takers put that they have not received any health education. However, I can conclude that Arizona has not been able to successfully educate its teens about health issues. After collecting 72 surveys,  50% of survey takers claimed that they planned on having sex or were already having sex. However. the majority of people failed the two sections regarding sex. Moreover, 92% of survey takers claimed that they thought physical contact was a part of dating, but the majority of people failed the STD portion of the survey. I am starting my final project this week, as I now have sufficient data to construct a curriculum. Next week, I will be calling a state senator to discuss the current status of health education in Arizona.

  

Week 10

I spent the majority of this week planning for my recruitment event. The event will be held this Saturday at Sunrise Mountain Library. I will hopefully be able to recruit Peoria teens to join Bloom365 in an effort to help end teen dating violence. On another note, I am able to see that most teens are unaware of the current health  issues through my survey. Students are scoring the best on the rape and consent section.  This trend should be a sigh of relief, as rape is unfortunately something teens need to be aware regardless of their decision on sex. However, most teens have failed the section regarding STDs which is extremely alarming, as almost all teens have listed physical contact (kissing, hugging, and touching) as a component of dating. Therefore,  these teens are wildly susceptible to potential STDs. About 30% of teens have responded that they plan on having sex (or already having sex), despite this, most survey-takers continue to fail the section regarding pregnancy. I will have to wait to make further conclusions, but for the most part current legislation has failed to educate Arizona teens.

Week 9

While I continue to collect data from my survey, I am also planning a recruitment event for my internship. The entire premise of Bloom365's education model predicates itself on peer education. Therefore, we often spend time reaching out to teens who may be interested in becoming peer educators for our program. Next week, I will be at Sunrise Mountain Library with high schoolers in the Peoria area. The recruitment event will center around advertising our summer camp and discussing our current curriculum. On a different note, my current survey results have shown that most survey-takers know the most about the issues regarding rape and consent. However, most people fell behind when it came to questions regarding STDs and Pregnancy.  Thus, my model curriculum will most likely center around pregnancy and STDs. This upcoming week, I will continue to work on collecting data and constructing my curriculum.

Week 8

After finishing my survey this week, I have begun to send out my survey to high schoolers and college students. My ideal number of collected surveys will be a hundred surveys. This number will be a realistic goal to attain, and it will also create a sizable data pool to draw conclusions for my SRP.  The survey is twenty questions long with three sections. I will compile the data by using pie charts found on the survey website. The questions which are missed the most on the survey will be the same topics that I will include in my health education curriculum. Next week, I will continue to collect data, while also beginning to create my ideal health education curriculum for youth in Arizona.

Week 7

Since Bloom365 is a non-profit organization, much of the supplies and materials that we use for our curriculum come from grants and other sources of funding. Therefore, Bloom365 often meets with the city council members of the school district, before we begin delivering our curriculum at high schools within the area. It was quite surreal to be a presenter of a grant proposal with an established organization. However, I was not ill-prepared for the meeting. Discussing research proposals in Biomechanics class gave me a better understanding of how to present the proposal to city council members. In order to successfully deliver the proposal, I would have to demonstrate that the research and education that we would be conducting at schools were beneficial and imperative. As a teenager, I explained to the city council members the need for health education. I went into detail discussing the benefits of creating open dialogues for teens to talk about self-esteem, abuse, bullying, dating, rape, and gender norms/inequalities. To my surprise, the city council members were not only impressed with our presentation, but they also were knowledgeable about the topics that often seem niche. Following our meeting, we were officially cleared to begin teaching at Peoria Unified School District's high schools!

Week 6

Since I will be taking this week as my spring break, I will be spending most of this week working on my survey and further research. I will be focusing on the content of my survey this week, as I have already created preliminary questions that focus on the dating life of survey takers and the extent of their health education. On face-value, the topics of my survey will be common knowledge regarding rape, STDs, and pregnancy and  important legislation regarding the same three topics. When I return to my internship next week, I will be meeting with Peoria City Council members to help Bloom365 receive grant money for providing education to high schoolers in Peoria.