Eighth Grade Capstone - Woodland School (2024)

Hi, my name is Nilesh. For my capstone, I am working to help reduce child illiteracy. My action piece is a book drive. If you have any new or used books in a working condition for children ages 3-14, please donate the in the bins at the front of the school. The book drive will run from Tuesday, March 21 to Friday, March 24. I would love your support, and thank you so much.

My name is Caitlin and I'm holding a clothing drive to get kids used donating or recycling clothes instead of throwing them away. My clothing drive starts the week after spring break and I am asking for families to bring used clothes in good condition to school. The week of April 24-28, students will have an opportunity to look through the items donated and take what they would like, remaining items will be donated.

From the 17th to the 21st of April there will be a drive for resources such as old pet beds, old pet toys, unopened pet food, blankets, towels, scratching posts, litter boxes, collars, leashes, harnesses, pet milk replacement, heating pads, and treat dispensers. These resources will be donated to the SPCA animal shelter for Baron’s action piece.

Claire and Bodhi are hosting a beach clean-up on the 22 of April from 9-11 am. Please join us to help clean Poplar Beach. We invite families to join us on Earth Day, April 22. Click here to sign up.

My name is Lili. My capstone project looks at poaching rhinos and what we can do to help. This run/walk will be taking place on Sunday, April 23 from 10-11 am, local location TBD. There are both in person and virtual options. The run/walk will be no more than 2 miles. All participants will receive a rhino fact sheet and sticker. A donation of $5 or more will get you a handmade rhino bracelet! All proceeds will go to the International Rhino Foundation. In person donations can be collected at the event. Please complete this form, if you are interested in joining the run/walk. Also, I will be selling homemade, beaded rhino bracelets Tuesday through Friday, April 17-22, before and after school. Bracelets are colorful, fun, and cost $5. All proceeds will go directly to the International Rhino Foundation. Thank you.

I’m David and I will be collecting sealed and non-expired canned goods outside the Lodge from May 1-5. All food collected will be going to a senior community in need of food.

My name is Matthew. I’m an 8th-grade student at Woodland School. Every year, 8th grade students choose a problem in the world that they are passionate to make a change about. I chose the problem of factory farming, the main way that meat is produced nowadays. Factory farming causes great harm to people, animals, and the environment. Industrial animal agriculture, or factory farms, contributes to 15.4% of the globe’s CO2 emissions. (FFAC, 2021) Both manure leaks and airborne ammonia cause ecological collapses in our lakes and rivers. The factory farms stink up the air, causing harm to people living nearby. There are many cruel agricultural practices that are commonplace at these farms, including overcrowding and, for chickens, debeaking.

My research has spurred a project where I have challenged my classmates to refrain from eating meat on Mondays during the month of March, hoping to lead to less meat consumption. If one person did not eat meat for 4 Mondays in March, 32 pounds of Co2 would not be released into the atmosphere and 1600 gallons of water would be saved. Please join the cause and pledge to refrain from consuming meat on Mondays in March by completing this form.

As of 2011, 8.6% of the Indian population or 103 million people are 60 and above. Based on a recent study, it is predicted that this population, growing at 3%, will triple to 309 million by 2050. Indian society has evolved from joint to nuclear families. However, care for this large population of elderly stops to medical care. Why? At old age, is access to doctors and medical facilities their only need? How can we ignore the needs of the population that helped raise us and leave them as drying leaves in our backyards?

Elderly people- all over the world- need more than medical care. Loneliness and isolation have been known to cause deteriorating health and an increase in Alzheimer's. We need to do something to help the generation that raised us.

My hope for the future is to create elderly activity centers, places where elderly people can interact and feel valued in their society. Here they will have something to look forward to each day. My contribution to this will be creating a prototype elderly care center over zoom. I plan to see how the elderly people enjoy companionship, and what they would look for in an activity center.

Ignoring the well-being of the 103 million population of India is no less a humanitarian crisis. Just as the children, the grandparents of the society deserve to have a better rest of their life.

Each year, we expose the world’s waterways to an increasing variety of pollutants — chemical runoff, crude oil, and garbage,particularly PLASTIC.Eight million metric tons - that’s how much plastic we dump into the oceans each year. That’s about 17.6 billion pounds. My capstone invites you to a beach cleanup on the coastal trail in front of the Pillar Point RV Park.I will have a table specifically for Woodland sign-ups and all necessary materials such as gloves, buckets, and trash sticks will be provided there. After you are finished, all the trash you collected and the trash that others collected, will be recycled and weighed.

Here are 3 things you can do to help:

1.Reduceyour use of plastic items+ spread the word about how plastic threatens our oceans.
2.Donateto the award-winningPacific Beach Coalition(PBC) and support their beach clean-up, habitat restoration, and education activities in the Bay Area.
3.Volunteerat the PBC Beach Clean-Up at Surfer's Beach in Half Moon Bay on Saturday, March 26. To RSVP email: [email protected].

I hope to see you there!
Zoe F, 8th grade student

Hi Woodland! My name is Julia and I am a current 8th grader. In 8th grade, students choose an issue dear to their hearts and try to help solve it. I decided to learn more about our blood supply in Bay Area hospitals and how hospitals are dealing with the blood supply shortage due to COVID-19. The blood supply in Bay Area hospitals has always been low but due to COVID-19, it has waned dramatically. More people are in hospitals, but blood donations have not increased to meet the demand. This results in millions of people each year having their lives in the palm of strangers' hands.

I have partnered with the American Red Cross to host a blood drive. This can be a one-time gift that saves lives. My blood drive will be held on Tuesday, April 5th, in The Lodge. By donating your blood you are not only giving people the gift of life but you are becoming the change that we need to see.

To be eligible to donate you must be at least 16 years of age and have not donated whole blood in the past 56 days. Please check out the link below with more information on donation eligibility, my blood drive, and selected time slots to donate:

https://www.redcrossblood.org/give.html/drive-results?zipSponsor=woodlandschool

40% of the food in the United States is wasted, and yet one in nine American families experience food insecurity during the year. How is this possible? The American food distribution system is riddled with inefficiency and waste at every level, making hunger not an issue of quantity, but an issue of access. Systemic oversights result in things like produce rotting in fields, entire bags of perfectly edible food thrown away for cosmetic reasons, and corporate overproduction. Worse yet, those with extra food— the farmers, the restaurateurs, the bakers— don't have the resources to get their unsaleable but edible product to food banks, lacking labor and transportation.

I chose to combat this issue on two levels: local and governmental. I sent letters to county and state offices outlining several action plans, such as requiring food businesses to report statistics on their waste (motivating them to clean up for fear of poor publicity), providing free transportation and storage resources to those with donatable product, and increasing publicity arounddonation-associated tax benefits. On the local level, I temporarily created a specific bin for students to dump their pure food waste into, further highlighting the sheer quantity of which can be wasted on such a small level.

If you want to help, I encourage you to start at a personal level: don't take more than you need at dinner, and clear your plate. Don't buy too much food at the grocery store. And right before you toss that carton of milk or that bag of ladyfingers into the trash bin, ask yourself: Do I really need to throw this away? Can I eat it? Can I give it to a friend?

Hi my name is Johanna. I am an 8th grade student at Woodland School. I am doing my capstone project on the problem of pet overpopulation. Capstone is a year long and highly rigorousproject where member of the eighth grade class choose a worldwide project to combat. Pet overpopulation is a surprisingly big topic and my researchhas led me to many causes. One of these being the lack of fixed pets. Another cause, unexpectedly, is the way the media influences the way people buy and care for pets.

My researchhas led me to partner with Pets In Need and host an online Meet and Greet. In the event, Pets In Need gave Woodland a behind the scenes tour, andthen we met some oftheir animals, met others who work in behavior, medical, fostering and animal care, and finally, there was a time for questions. This took place on March 10, 2022. Even though the turnout was small, I felt that the event was highly successful.

Hello! My name is Mia and I'm an 8th grade student. My capstone project is about unpleasant design, a type of design that aims to exclude a type of person from an area. Ever see those unnecessary arm rests in the middle of benches? Those are there so people can not sleep on that bench. Ever notice that there are not enough seats in airports for the amount of people that are passing through? Those are so people have to sit down in shops and restaurants. Pigeon spikes? Anti-homeless spikes? Those are all there to remove a type of person from an area. This type of design plagues our urban environments.

To help one of the biggest groups targeted by unpleasant design, homeless people, I did a bake sale, which ended up raising 385 dollars to donate to the Saint Vincent De Paul Society, a charity that helps homeless people in San Francisco.

According to a research journal by the Brookings Metro Team, 25% of all jobs will face high exposure to automation in the coming decades. Routine jobs, like labor heavy construction or clerking jobs will be overturned with the advent of automation. That is the 25% that will be affected by automation, just in these coming few decades.

AI won't stop there, innovating and tearing through jobs. Many of the secure jobs will fall, leaving those who couldn’t find a job left behind in the dust. However, there are some ways that we can prevent most of the calamity.

Universal Basic Income is one of these, a money transfer program that provides 1,000 dollars a month to all adults. This would allow everyone to be above the poverty line, and would be paid for by installing a VAT tax. VAT means value added tax, which is very similar to sales tax except it taxes at every time value is added on the supply end of things.

Another idea is for sectoral/job training programs to be created in order to fill the new jobs made by the new technology. Since sectoral training programs also work with some companies and target specific empty job opportunities, it is effective.

The last idea is to create laws and restrictions that prevent companies from replacing employees with robots and AI. This would force companies to make employees work with robots, instead of completely getting rid of them. What we as people can do, is either vote for these systems if they ever enter government, or spread the word. For my Capstone project, I am going to send a letter to Gavin Newsom asking him to make these reforms.

Video Link: https://youtu.be/rF-ySEoYG6A

Andrew is raising awareness surrounding police use of military-grade equipment

Taxes are used in many ways by the government. Many times people don’t agree with how their money is used. Children might not be paying taxes, however your parents are. In this instance some of their money is used for law enforcement. Some of the money even gets spent on military-grade equipment. Military-grade equipment is expensive and unnecessary for police officers. Military grade equipment has also led to many deaths when not used correctly. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Only 7% of Georgia’s law enforcement agencies received surplus military gear at any time over the 10 years, but those agencies accounted for 17% of the 261 people shot and killed by police. So, if you believe that military-grade equipment should not be used and is excessive, please copy and sign the letter below and send it out to your local police department chiefs.

Instructions:

Sign your name

Find your local police department’s chief’s email

Send out

Fill out follow up form.

Dear_______,

My name is ______ and I am a student at Woodland School in Portola Valley. My classmate is doing a project about police brutality. He has spent the past six months researching this sensitive topic. He found out that the use of military-grade equipment in law enforcement is common. I want to make sure that policemen are trained to use those weapons because they can become unnecessary and have a higher chance of killing someone. Please tell me the equipment police officers use and their training process with this equipment.

With appreciation,

_______

If you sent a message to your local police department, please complete this form and thank you!

My name is Bella, I’ve been at Woodland for three years now and I am in eighth grade. For my capstone project I have decided to tackle gender equality in pay for women's sports. For my action piece I’m partnering with a semi-professional Women's Soccer Team based in Sacramento to raise money for soccer equipment for teenage girls who are Afghan refugees. They are shamed by their community for wanting to play soccer. To achieve this, we would like to have Woodland middle school students and their parents attend a zoom conference which will feature a few of the players from this semi-pro soccer team. Our goal, through this fundraiser, is to provide greater exposure of this women's team and the disparity in pay issue, to their community and hopefully beyond.

HOW CAN YOU HELP:

• Come to zoom fundraiser on Friday, March 26, at 4:00 pm - register here
• If possible donate to the fight for equality in women's sports

Every year, millions of animals are rescued and put into shelters, many of which are dogs that have been abandoned or rescued from puppy mills. A puppy mill is an, “in-humane high-volume dog breeding facility that churns out puppies for a profit,” (Humane Society). According to the ASPCA, the dogs in puppy mills are “commonly kept in small, stacked, wire-floored crates or in outdoor pens exposed to heat, cold, and rain.” They are forced to “eat, sleep, and give birth in confinement” (ASPCA: Barred From Love) This can lead to a spread of diseases. When dogs arrive at animals shelters they are sometimes too sick for the animal shelters to be saved. Unfortunately, many animals that get put in shelters end up getting euthanized even if they are healthy.

Hello Woodland!

My name is Leila and I am in eighth grade. For my Capstone Action Piece, I will be hosting a dog donation drive to support Coyote Point Shelter in San Mateo. You may drop off donations in a box labeled “Dog Donations Box” with orange tape on it, outside the Lodge. The box will be out for donations between 8:15am-3:30pm Monday through Friday.

Donations for the following items will begin on 3/8/21 through 3/31/21:

• Unopened bag of dog food (No prescriptions)
• Clean Towels
• Clean Blankets (no stuffing or quilts)
• Newspaper

Your donations will make a remarkable impact on the yet-to-be-homed friends at Coyote Point Animal Shelter! Thank you!

National Parks are struggling with finding funding for their infrastructural repair including more than 5,500 miles of paved roads, 17,000 miles of trails, and 24,00 buildings in the parks are in need of maintenance improvements.

By the age of 14, girls are dropping out of sports at twice the rate of boys. By age 17, after most girls have gone through puberty, more than half of girls -- 51% -- will have quit sports altogether. 89% of girls ages 16 to 24 said there is pressure to conform to a feminine stereotype, which causes them to drop out of sports.

My Name is Natalie. I have been at Woodland for nine years and I am an eighth grade student. For my Capstone project, the topic I have chosen is: What effect does playing sports have on girls under the age of 20 in the Bay Area, and why are girls dropping out if the effects are mostly beneficial? For my Action piece, I am hosting a zoom room from 5:00 - 5:45 on Monday, March 29th with Stanford and Cal athletes to provide role models for girls at Woodland in grades 4th-8th. During the Zoom meeting girls can pose their questions to the Stanford and Cal players. If you would like to join the Zoom Room with Stanford and Cal athletes, please email [email protected] and I'll send you the link.

Hi everyone, my name is Molly and my capstone project is about animal poaching. Poaching is the illegal hunting of animals. Wildlife trade makes an estimated 10 - 20 billion dollars every year. Rhino horns have the highest demand and highest price among consumers and the Black Market. There are only 70 Javan rhinos left in the wild today and many other species of rhino also face extinction. Unfortunately, as the population of these species goes down, the demand for their parts only grows. Local communities, the environment, and other species are all affected by poaching.

I will be selling rhino stickers to the middle school students as well as the 3-4 graders and I will donate all the proceeds to the International Rhino Foundation. The IRF strives to eliminate poaching and fight for their survival. I will also be sending out a short quiz to the middle school students to spread awareness about poaching.

If you would like to take my short anonymous quiz, here is the link: https://forms.gle/Uy6fJdubaFVv2GSd6

I am Mateo and I am an 8th grade student at Woodland. Every year, 8th graders choose a problem in the world that they are passionate to make a change about. I chose food insecurity in the Bay Area. I was inspired to work on this topic due to an experience I had volunteering with One Life Counseling. At the start of the pandemic, my mom and I volunteered at a food drive at One Life. We ran out of food and there were still about 30 or so families that couldn't get food. After that experience and research, I realized how large of a problem food insecurity is and I wanted to make a change. As of January 2021, 19% of people in the Bay Area are food insecure. Hosting a fundraiser is a way I can make a change, any and all amounts donated are greatly appreciated. All of the money donated will be used to help families that are food insecure. My goal is to raise $500 for One Life Counseling which is an amount that will support a Friday Food Drive with distribution of food for 150 families in need.

To find out more about One Life Counseling, please visit their website at https://www.onelifecounselingcenter.com/.

If you would like to donate, please visit MateoSotoOneLifeFundraiser.

I am Milo and for my Capstone project I have focused on the crisis of poverty among restaurant workers. For my action piece, I have chosen to raise awareness and understanding about the problem through various posters and articles in newspapers around the local area, all of which lead to my website.

There are over fifteen million restaurant workers in the United States today, and over 40% of them are near poverty (National restaurant Association 2020, Grub Street 2014). The people who flip your burgers, wait your tables, bus your dishes, and more, often cannot afford rent, food, or bills where they live. In the United States, restaurants are not required to pay tipped employees more than a miniscule $2.13 per hour, as compared to the $7.25 minimum wage for non-tipped workers in the US (US DOL, 2021). This leads to many restaurant workers having to juggle several part-time jobs just to stay afloat.

To learn more, and show your support, visit my website at: www.supportworkers.wixsite.com/raisethewage.

Fast fashion is one of the largest polluters in the world, but many are unaware of what the practice even is. Fast fashion is mass-produced clothing made to satisfy trends, and feed into consumerism. Cheap, quick, and in style, people reach for fast fashion options without looking into where these articles are made. So where does fast fashion come from? Fast fashion is often made by workers in inhumane conditions, who are overworked and underpaid, which is part of the reason why these clothes can be sold at such a low cost. Although a solution to this problem is “slow fashion,” which can be pricey and hard to access, a cheaper, more accessible option, thrifting, is quickly gaining traction in the fashion industry. Not only does thrifting benefit the environment by reducing the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere because the buyer is giving previously donated clothing a new life, but it is also a more affordable option to sustainable buying.

Hello Woodland Community, my name is Katie, and in order to help supply these thrift stores, I’m setting up a clothes drive at Woodland, collecting thriftable apparel which will be donated to my local Goodwill. You can donate any type of clothing, including shirts, slacks, shoes, as long as the article is in good, wearable condition, and has been washed prior to donation. The drive will be held outside of the front office, where a bin will be located to collect donations. The donation drive will begin on April 23 and extend through May 17th, Monday through Friday. I hope you have the chance to donate! Thank you!

Although animal testing is a widely adopted method for determining the safety of a product, 95 out of every 100 drugs that are tested in animals fail in humans. So, why do so many companies continue to test on animals to this day?

Hello, my name is Alexandra and, this year, I have researched the potential of alternative testing models. Cruelty free methods, or methods that do not invoke pain to animals during the testing process, are often under researched, therefore securing negative outlooks from the general public. However, it is easy to say that these methods are more accurate than animal tests. This is because animals innately have different DNA to humans, and information that is derived often does not transfer to humans. Additionally, alternative testing is more cost effective, and diverse in terms of a variety of testing methods. Alternative methods allow scientists to adjust small details, ensuring that the test results are more accurate.

Please use this app to see if a company is cruelty-free:

Hello, my name is Marcus and my capstone project is about coral bleaching. Coral bleaching, the expulsion of coral’s symbiotic algae which provide it with sustenance, is an environmental disaster that will have consequences that ripple throughout the whole world if left unchecked. In the last 30 years, around 50% of coral reefs have died, and up to 90% could die within this century. Coral reefs are ecosystems imperative to the biodiversity of our planet, and those who have witnessed its beauty can understand the need to keep these ecosystems healthy. According to National Graphic, “An estimated 4,000 fish species, and some 25 percent of marine life, depend on coral reefs at some point in their existence”. These marine housing systems are slowly being destroyed by human caused climate change. As we humans are the root cause of this problem, the responsibility to fix it also falls on us. For my action piece, I created a website with information on coral bleaching and how to reduce your carbon footprint, as well as a coral bleaching animation I made using Adobe Animate. My action piece was meant to spread awareness around coral bleaching, in hopes that informing others would make them feel the need to preserve these reefs.

You can find my website at coralbleachinginfo.webnode.com, where you can read more about coral bleaching and its effects on the world. Reducing your carbon footprint by switching to electric appliances and consuming less non-reusable materials can greatly benefit by reversing global warming.

Rising sea levels and poor air quality have affected millions of lives and will continue to do so. These problems are a part of a bigger issue known as global warming. Alexcreated a 3D model of solar panels andposted the model on a website called Thingverse with a brief description of why solar panels can be helpful and how someone can donate to Gridalternatives to fund solar panels for low-income households. View his solar panel here.​​​​​​​

The 5K is cancelled due to measures put in place to decrease the spread of COVID-19. Thank you for your understanding.

Hello Woodland Families!

The price to participate will be $20 per person. Larger donations are appreciated as well.

The event will take place from 9 am - 11 am and the race will start at 9:15am.

I am looking forward to seeing people there!

Learn more about Animal Testing

With almost unanimous consensus, Americans and residents of the Bay Area consider the homelessness crisis in San Francisco, one of the most affluent cities in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, a humanitarian crisis. Over 9,000 individuals do not have a permanent shelter, and over half of those 9,000 don't have a shelter of any variety (Turner, 6). There is limited healthcare and medical support services to get them off the streets. This is especially critical given that many of them have diseases like HIV (Bouchér, 2). A combination of gentrification in low-income areas and rapid development that strips away housing units for at-risk individuals and families has created a serious homelessness issue that disproportionately affects minorities. (Darling-Hammond, 3). In order to avoid the total socioeconomic and humanitarian cataclysm on the horizon, city leadership needs to establish concrete measures to support the homeless and prevent at-risk individuals and families from becoming homeless. While the Mayor has proclaimed her intention to tackle the crisis, she still remains behind a veil of bureaucracy that prevents her from utilizing her position to the fullest.

Nikhil publicly called for the mayor to take action. View is letter toMayor London Breed.

Human trafficking is the action or practice of illegally transporting people from one country or area to another, typically for the purposes of forced labor or sexual exploitation.Trafficking is equivalent to modern-day slavery and needs to become more recognized around the world. Many people are forced or frauded into harmful situations, performing labor in order for traffickers to make a big profit. The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most trafficking-prone places in California. Human Trafficking is a threat to the world, just like slavery. This is like slavery, where people are taken and considered as property used to benefit the trafficker. 51% of people that are trafficked are women, while 21% are men. 28% of victims are children which is depressing.

Human trafficking in the Bay Area is a significant problem because it is not tightly regulated in big cities and leads to people getting abused; just like modern-day slavery. To solve this problem, people need to be aware of their surroundings, educated on the topic and should know how to defend themselves if they are confronted by a trafficker. Olivia'saction piece will be an online self defense class. After learning self defense skills, students should feel more confident and safe when going outside. Students will also be able to identify situations in which to use self defense after this online class.

Vaping is an international, and prominent issue in today’s society. 37.3% of high school seniors tried to vape during the last 12 months in December of 2018, which was tremendous growth from the 27.8% of high school seniors who had tried vaping in the last year during 2017. The small particles in the vapor in e-cigarettes can also be proven to lead to various cancers. Vaping or the use of e-cigarettes is the act of inhaling small particles, including nicotine. E-cigarettes are separate from normal cigarettes because the exhaust is not smoke; it is vapor made of toxic chemicals, including nicotine, propylene, and carcinogens. Carcinogens have been proven to cause cancer. Vaping is a health crisis among teens because large companies, such as Juul, are selling e-cigarettes at small gas stations that are not heavily regulated. Schools need to educate their students about the health effects of vaping. Therefore, one possible solution to this problem is to spread awareness and information about this to schools in my area. This would hopefully limit the number of teenagers who try to vape. Charlottewanted students to notify others about these health problems, so that rumor would go around that vaping is detrimental to your health. She posted the information flyer below at two local middle schools.

Many parents and others continue to converse about which type of school, that they can best be part of, can they best benefit from including their children. Several people still wonder which type of school could set the future of their child brighter and wealthy. Thus, creating barriers of wealth, education, and the overall relationship the student has with its educators. Many exceptions immediately come to mind when applying your child to a school they want to go to or they need to go to. There are many differences in public to a private school that can support the students that attend there to best help them in present and in the future. Furthermore, there are several other reasons a parent would put their child in a public school. That being said, what goes outside of school can affect what’s going inside and vice-versa as the beginning of the child’s education is what could matter the most.What are the main differences between public schools and private schools? The head pounding argument of public schools versus private schools is still an ongoing debate. There are many exceptions and evidence to aim toward one or the other such as which is better for you and your child, or you and your or budget/income, and you and your school district.

Julio's action piece is a comic book comparing the different lives of people in different types of schools. Hishypothesis is that hisaction piece will inform those who read it an average day of different students who attend a public school while another attends a private school.

The initial design is a comic book with up to 6 panels a page. The comic will have a main student and people all around showing how he could be seen and treated. The comic informs people of the differences in the different ways a day could’ve gone. While the comic was average in size the explanation is enough to complete a full day. The comic shows how his4 years in public school went compared to his4 years in a private school could’ve gone.

Did you know that social media can not only affect your physical and mental health negatively, but you can also affect yourself positively? Social media to most parents is utter horridness because kids are always on it, nonstop. However, it can cause harm and few adults know about the positive aspects. How does this affect the people around us? Well, a single post can reach thousands, even millions, of people around the world. But how does that post affect us? And how do other people’s posts affect us? While it has been reported that up to 25% of teens feel less shy and more confident, social media lacks emotional connection with family and friends and it can facilitate laziness. Many people are slowly becoming addicted to social media, either positively or negatively. Adolescents you see everyday can be impacted by social media for a number of reasons; feelings isolated, meeting new people online, reduced self-esteem, and more. While social media can have a negative impact on adolescents’ self-confidence, few know the positive impacts of social media. Social media raises awareness of teen hobbies and interests that can combat depression and anxiety. Teens need to be aware of the positive and negative impacts of social media.

Zoémade a large canvas painting hinting at both the advantages and disadvantages of social media. Shealso interviewed a few of my fellow students in middle school, asking each of them a few questions about their use of social media. Shewanted more people to recognize both the assets and liabilities of social media. Most people know only one or the other, and shewanted people to know both.

The painting is inspired by the effects of social media on everyone. In the painting, a girl, who Zoénamed Alys (pronounced ‘Al-liss’), is falling in a swirl of colors while clutching on her cellphone. Alys is a girl instead of a boy because studies show that girls are more vulnerable to social media than boys, especially with their self-confidence. Alys is falling into the “rabbit hole” of social media. The dark blue hands are reaching out to her, trying to bring her back to the “real world.” Colors are emerging out of the phone. Social media doesn’t only increase depression and anxiety, it can also offer opportunities to meet amazing people and have many positive experiences; these are represented by the colors. The colors also serve as emotions when on social media; yellow for happiness, blue for sadness, and so forth.

In the Bay Area, commuters ride public transportation 1.8 million times a week. (Transit Ridership par. 1). With these statistics, it is a surprise that the Bay Area is ranked near the bottom of many transit rankings. Commuters have pleaded for change with no avail, asking Bay Area leaders to create reforms and pass acts that would help improve transit.

The Bay Area’s ailing public transportation affects thousands of commuters per day. Bay Area Rapid Transit, also known as BART, and Muni, part of the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency, are known for crowded cars, messy stations, costly fares, and inadequate service. An effective, easy to use, efficient, inexpensive, and above all, seamless, transit system would benefit not only users but also the reputation of the Bay Area’s public transit. To achieve this, the public needs to be informed about the issues and possible solutions.

Aneeshdecided to inform the public in a 4-step plan. First, hestarted a fundraiser on Cause Vox. This was designed to alert Bay Area leaders to take action in helping to fix our transit system. Also, this money went to supporting Seamless Bay Area and keeping the non-profit working. Next, heshared the Seamless Petition to hispeers and the Woodland Middle School. Aneeshgained about 200 signatures towards the 1600 signature goal. The main goal of he action piece was to post 40 posters, made in photoshop, advertising Seamless Bay Area and its mission statement. Heposted these in areas such as Mountain View’s Castro Street, Menlo Park’s Santa Cruz Avenue, and Palo Alto’s California Avenue. These places are well known for having regular pedestrian traffic. He found community bulletin boards and asked employees if hecould place my advertisem*nt at the storefront. Lastly, hecreated a presentation regarding the recently passed AB 2057 Seamless Transit Act, introduced by San Francisco assembly member, David Chiu. He alsosent this presentation to Bay Area elected leaders, such as the Board of Supervisors in various Bay Area districts.