Team: 19
School: Jackson Middle School
Area of Science: Medical Science
Interim: Fun Ways to Learn About Anxiety
Team: #19
Team members: Natalia Godin-Davis npup8u@gmail.com
Renee Petrie petrie.renee.g@gmail.com
Teachers: Karen Glennon kglennon25@gmail.com
Sharee Lunsford lunsford@aps.edu
Sponsors: Patty Meyer pmeyer2843@gmail.com
Drew Einhorn drew.einhorn@gmail.com
Geoff Petrie geoff@geoffpetrie.com
Teresa Roberts t.l.roberts@ieee.org
Area of Science: Mental Health
Problem Definition:
There is a large gap in our knowledge, as a society, concerning anxiety. We think our problem involves this: it’s a problem we face as a whole going through all ages. Although some people go through it every day, the knowledge about this problem is minimal. We have known about this problem for a while and we’ve decided to act on it, targeting teens. Some with severe anxiety use medication. This can take a toll on your body because of the side effects such as depression, hair loss, etc.
Problem Solution:
We feel we would need to educate the people (targeting teens) on anxiety. We also want to make this a fun and easy way to process. So our solution is to create a website that would include games of all sorts. The games would help them have fun while learning ways to cope, but learn about anxiety as a whole. We would be teaching them about common anxiety such as: general anxiety disorder, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and social phobia. Now keep in mind that we will be showing people how these anxiety’s work, and showing some coping mechanisms that may work with some anxiety disorders. The science to this is that neurotransmitters send signals to the brain, the reaction to stress (like adrenaline) that makes your heart rate increase and your blood vessels contract. This is what we want to avoid. We want to create a website that would educate young teens about the scientific side to this. We want them to know about other things such as how the medication reacts positively and negatively to your body and your mind.
We are aware there are other solutions to this problem and we’ve looked into them. Every website we’ve searched has lots of information on anxiety disorders, but they usually involve boring text and can be overwhelming. We want to make it fun for everyone and tell them about anxiety through fun games and a short amount of text.
Progress to date:
After our proposal we decided to work on a more reasonable goal than the one we started with. From there we decided to go smaller and create a new idea dedicated to fun gaming and learning otherwise known as our website idea. We then started learning the program lua, which we are still in the works of doing. We have started learning about the ways gaming keeps people entertained by interviewing ourselves along with family members.
Coding Plan:
We are using Lua, because it’s simple for beginners. It’s easy to follow when learning how to create a video game like we are. So far we are learning the basics. We are first creating a game similar to flappy bird to learn the basics. We will then use this knowledge to program a website that has games about anxiety, and how it works.Our ultimate goal is to create a watch that will help people with anxiety,but that won’t be for many years.
Expected Results:
Our hopes for the progress we want to make is learning a legitimate programming language and then hope to learn how to make a basic video game. In the future we want to create the website we have been thinking about making. We hope long term that we can help educate youths, like ourselves, on anxiety disorders and ways to cope with some anxiety disorders, and educate them on the medication they may be taking and how it affects their body and mind.
Works Cited
Digital Communications Division. “What Are the Five Major Types of Anxiety Disorders?†HHS.gov, 21 Aug. 2015, www.hhs.gov/answers/mental-health-and-substance-abuse/what-are-the-five-major-types-of-anxiety-disorders/index.html.
“Home.†Anxiety and Depression Association of America, ADAA, adaa.org/.
Lutz, Charlene. Work interview. 8, Nov 2019.
Petrie, Dr. Jennifer. Phone interview. 28, Oct 2019.
Team Members:
Natalia Godin-Davis
Renee Petrie
Sponsoring Teacher: Karen Glennon