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Wildcat Colloquium Presentation

Colloquium Presentation - Sarah Friedman

Research Paper

May 28, 2020

With MARC coming to a close, I have been working to finalize my materials. Tuesday was the Wildcat Colloquium where I presented my project, the work I have done, and the data I found. I have spent the last few weeks putting together my presentation, working on my final paper, and analyzing my data. Due to COVID-19 and unrelated health issues, my time dedicated to data analysis ran short. As a result, I was not able to explore many of the topics I had hoped to.

However, I was able to look into sleep schedule consistency and how they varied between the schools. I found that, as University High School started later in the morning, students went to bed later on school nights than students at College Preparatory School or Marin Academy. As a result, there was less of a shift in average the bedtime between weekdays and weekends for University students. On weekends, students at University went to bed 30 minutes later on average, whereas students at College Prep and MA went to bed an hour later on weekends.

In addition, I found that while University students get 10 more minutes of sleep on average than students at College Prep or MA, students at all schools get less than 8 hours or sleep on school nights. This leads me to believe that, while later school start times lead to more consistent sleep schedules, they do not have very much of an impact on the amount of sleep students get.

My presentation and paper can be seen above.

Apr. 20, 2020

The past two months have been turned upside down due to CODIV-19, throwing a wrench in my MARC schedule. Luckily, I already have my data collected so not much is lost. Over the next month and a half, I will mainly be working on my data analysis using RStudio. In addition, I will be writing my final paper discussing my project.

Q3 Presentation

Feb. 18, 2020

I have been working very hard this past few weeks, being in contact with everyone involved in my project, and sending out my questionnaire. I now have 651 responses: 111 from College Preparatory School, 138 from University High School, and 402 responses from Marin Academy. I am waiting for a response from my contact at Branson High School to see if they will participate in my survey. To the left is my Quarter 3 progress presentation.

2020 Semester 2 Overview

January 9 marked the first of my remaining MARC classes ever. Over the next five months I will be working hard to draw my project to a close. The most important things that I will be working on this month are to work with MA's student dean to designate time for students to complete my questionnaire, as well as reaching out to my contacts at the schools who agreed to participate to remind them of the project and go over what I will need from them.

I plan on sending out my questionnaire to the participating schools in the beginning of February. I will leave the questionnaire open for a week or so following the release date. Then, I will close the questionnaire and proceed to analyze the data. If I need help analyzing, I will ask for help from one of the two statistics teachers at MA. Finally, I will work to put all of my data and statistics in a presentation and/or poster so people will be better able to understand my research project, my findings, and its significance.

Dec. 13, 2019

I have been working hard over the past three weeks. While I am working on analyzing the data from the pilot questionnaire, I have spent these weeks focusing on being on contact with other Bay Area schools. Currently, College Preparatory School, Branson, Oakland Technical School, and University High School have agreed to participate in my survey. Berkeley High School and Madrone High School are both potential candidates, but I am having trouble contacting them.

In addition to contacting, I have been trying to plan out next semester: what needs to be done, and when it will be done. The total list of what I need to do by the end of the year is shown in the image below.

Nov. 22, 2019

Over the past few weeks I have been working hard to finalize my pilot questionnaire which I then sent out to around 20 Marin Academy students. Having gotten the responses back, I am now looking into analyzing the data to ensure the questions are getting my analyzable data, as well as changing the wording of any necessary questions.

In addition, I have been in contact with Branson and University High School about my survey, and am planning to contact a few other Bay Area high schools to see if any of them are willing to participate in my project.

Next Steps

I am currently in the process of finalizing my questionnaire, after having spent the past few months compiling questions from previous studies. Once I finish it, I will be gathering a small group of around 15 or so people on which I can test my survey. By doing so, I will be able to ensure my questions get me the data I need to answer my question. I will also be able to know if any questions are confusing to the questionnaire-taker.

After making any necessary changes, I will send the questionnaire to the Marin Academy student body. I will also get in touch with other schools around the Bay Area, especially those that do not start at 8:00am. I will work to get my questionnaire sent out to the students at those schools as well. In doing so, I will be able to get data not only from MA, but from other schools. This will allow me to directly see the correlation between the time at which school starts and how the students act and feel daily.

Over the past month, I have made good progress on my SMART goals. My first goal was to talk with UCSF Ph.D. student Lauren Whitehurst about her own work in sleep research. I talked with her earlier this month and learned a lot of helpful information that I have been using to maximize the effectiveness of my questionnaire. My other goal was to continue to work on my methods, which I have also done. My call with Lauren was very helpful in my work on my methods.

Presentation

To the left is my Quarter I Update presentation, which gives an overview of my project and my future plans.

2019/2020 Semester 1 Mid-Quarter Progress Update

This past month has been a good start getting back into the swing of my MARC project. I have reacquainted myself with a lot of the texts from last year, as well as reviewed my old questionnaire. I am continuing to develop my questionnaire to be more expansive than last year's, using a previous survey as a template (see post from Sept. 10). In that sense, I have been doing well in my September SMART goals, as I have greatly progressed in my methods and am very close to finalizing them.

Earlier this week, I emailed Dr. Matthew Walker, a professor at UC Berkeley. I emailed him last year in hopes that he could help me with my project. Unfortunately, he was on sabbatical. I emailed him again on Sept. 16 hoping he was back at his lab in Berkeley but he is, unfortunately, still on sabbatical and will be for at least the rest of the 2019-2020 school year. I have looked into some of the people who work in his lab and, in the following week, will be looking to see who would best be of use to me. I may also contact Mary A. Carskadon who, not only worked on the research paper I am using as a frame for my questionnaire, but also has worked on many other scientific papers surrounding sleep deprivation in high schoolers. I am hoping that I will soon find someone that will be able to aid me in my project.

Sept. 27, 2019

Over the past few weeks I have been working to reach out to local researchers who may be able to aid me in my process. Unfortunately, Dr. Walker remains on sabbatical so he will be unable to help me. Luckily, I was able to get in touch with a Ph.D. student at UCSF named Lauren Whitehurst who has many published papers concerning sleep deprivation and sleep research. I was able to schedule a phone call with her this upcoming Wednesday. I am very excited and I believe she will be able to help me a lot. Over the next few days I will be looking more extensively through her research and develop questions to ask her during our call.

Sept. 10, 2019

This month, my goal is to have at least two people to reach out to for possible mentorship, and I also hope to get close to finalizing my method of data collection. Overall, I have been doing well and believe I will be able to complete both goals by the end of this month.

I was reading a scientific paper (Adolescent Sleep Patterns, Carskadon, M.) on a study similar to mine and was able to find the survey that they used which is very helpful. This will allow me to either use the survey as a template, or use it instead of creating my own.

I have also been working on an email for Dr. Matthew Walker who was on sabbatical last year, but who I am hoping will be back in his lab at UC Berkeley this year. If he is unable to work with me, I will likely reach out to one of his colleagues.

Aug. 29, 2019

This past summer I spend three weeks in Boston on the campus of Tufts University. I worked with three PhD students under the Dean of Graduate Education for the School of Engineering, Dr. Karen Panetta. Over those few weeks, I learned a lot about research and got a lot of hands on experience. I learned about many different aspects of research in the field of engineering, which I found to be extremely interesting. I am very glad to have had the opportunity and cannot wait to implement my new experiences into my MARC project.

Over the next few weeks, I will be working on reaching out to possible mentors, as well as working on the methodology through which I will be collecting my data later this semester.

Science Symposium

For my science symposium project, I looked to see what kind of effect a student's grade level (9th, 10th, 11th, 12th) had on their sleep levels and quality. I then looked to see what type of effect their sleep had on their schoolwork.

Mar. 29, 2019

Over the past week, I have been working on my SMART goals for April. I also emailed Dr. Matt Davis at Dominican University, who has a lot of experience working with questionnaire-based research. I have not yet heard back from him, but I hope he will be able to help me with my project.

Over the next few weeks, I plan on finishing my research proposal as well as completing the CITI human training course. When I finish, I will be able to start collecting data for my Science Symposium project.

Mar. 22, 2019

Earlier this week, I finished the research description of my research proposal and also found a few other sources that will be helpful as I draft my questionnaire. Over the next week, I will work on finishing my research proposal as well as compiling questions to include in my questionnaire.

Mar. 15, 2019

Over the past week, I have been working to find new sources, specifically ones that will help me form my questionnaire, working on my research proposal, and working on the proposal for our Science Symposium. Over the next week, I will be finishing my Science Symposium proposal and will work towards finishing the research description of my research proposal.

Mar. 8, 2019

Last week, I sent my email to Dr. Walker. Immediately, I received a return email alerting me to his leave on sabbatical for the rest of the year. As a result, I have begun to look into the background and work of some of his colleagues to see if any of them may be a possible mentor for me.

I have also been working on my research proposal, which I will continue to work on this upcoming week.

Feb. 22, 2019

Over the past week, I have been finalizing my email to Dr. Walker. I have also been working on my research proposal. Over Minicourse, I will be working on my proposal as well as sending my email.

Feb. 15, 2019

Over the past week, I have been working to complete my experimental design project, which I present in class on 02/13/19. I have also drafted an email for Dr. Walker, which I will be sending within the next week. Over the past week, I have also been looking into specifics of how I will collect data for my research. As of now, I will likely be sending out a questionnaire to the student body of Marin Academy which questions pertinent to my study. However, this plan is likely to evolve as I continue to develop my project.

Feb. 8, 2019

Over the past week, I have been working on my research proposal, as well as looking into possible mentors. I found a man named Matthew Walker, a professor at Berkeley University who teaches about the importance of sleep. I will be sending him an email soon. I have also been working on my experimental design project that I will be presenting to my classmates.

Feb. 1, 2019

I have spent the past week completing my resume and cover letter and completing the background of my research proposal. I have also continued to find more sources, specifically focusing on the methods that were used by the researchers to collect the data they needed. While researching, I have found that the majority of tests done surrounding the importance of sleep in students have used questionnaires completed by the students. Another source of data have been simple reflex or memory tests. While reading these sources, I have been thinking about how I may be gathering data for my project.

Jan. 25, 2019

Over the past week, I have been working on my resume and cover letter, as well as the background section of my research proposal. I have spent most of my time, however, continuing to find sources through which I can begin to develop a process through which I will be conducting my research.

Jan. 18, 2019

Over the past week I have continued my research, making sure to find sources that will aid me in my future project. I have found many sources, and as the week progresses I will be working on my project proposal.

I have found a lot of interesting information surrounding sleep deprivation in students.

Jan. 14, 2019

As a high school student, my classmates and I often comment on how tired we are, or how, before a test, we only got 'x' hours of sleep. There have been many recent experiments done about how students are not getting enough sleep, and how schools should start later than 8:00 in the morning. I found this idea very interesting, especially as the sleep schedule of students is something that directly affects me.

Currently, my MARC project is still a large work in progress. I recently changed my project from studying iron metabolism to sleep deprivation, so I have recently been doing a lot of research surrounding sleep deprivation in students. I will be spending the next week or so continuing my research.

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