Students in Pre-AP Biology are partaking in a challenge that prompts them to research a health issue of their desire and extend their knowledge to create a positive impact on their communities. 

“The purpose of the challenge is to have students engage in a project where they research the content of our new unit, body systems and then take that information to think of a way to improve the health of the immediate community around them by proposing a solution to a health issue/disease that is of interest to the student,” teacher Deanna Cowger said via email. “For example, a student who suffered from asthma as a child was interested in creating a program to educate parents about breathing techniques that they can teach to their asthmatic child.”

For freshman Tulsi Rampalli, the challenge extended her learning on not just body systems, but on ways she can help her community.

“It’s cool that we were able to communicate back what we learned during our research in a positive way,” Rampalli said via text. “It was really eye-opening to make a proposal that can directly affect our community, and on top of that during peer review I was able to see other student’s interesting ideas on how they’d want to improve the health of our own community.”

Deciding to tackle an issue that is prevalent to our nation today is at the heart of what freshman Shannon Christian worked on.

“My topic for the human body systems challenge is cardiovascular disease, and I chose to research ways to prevent the damage that the condition causes to patients, and how to create an app that monitors healthy habits,” Christian said via text. “Heart disease is extremely popular in the US, and projects like these help bring more awareness to the issue.”

To freshman Rhea Advani, there are some major pros to this assignment.

“I think that this project is beneficial to the community because it expands students’ minds by challenging us to think through a well-thought out plan,” Advani said via text. “Not only that, but  hopefully this project will prevent some of the health issues we have going on.”