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.