A YALE-BOUND SENIOR WRITES ABOUT HER COMPLETION OF THREE YEARS’ WORTH OF INNOVATION PURSUITS.

My Innovation Pursuits (IP) have been a direct result of the coronavirus pandemic.

When the community first returned to campus in the fall of 2020, the changes in health precautions were obvious, and public health felt like a much more visible and relevant field of study. My first IP, presented in 2021, was born out of curiosity about these changes, and how well most people grasped them. Do Berwick students really understand how long they should wash their hands? Do they get their health information from reputable sources? Do they ever sanitize their phones and laptops? These were the questions I asked in a series of student surveys throughout the year, and the answers were startling.

Most people did know that they should wash their hands for 20 seconds and get at least eight hours of sleep. The surveys indicated that they were generally well-informed regarding health precautions. The issue was not misinformation, as I had first anticipated, but compliance. Sure, most people knew they should be doing these things, but they weren’t motivated to do them.

Those findings were the impetus for my second IP, presented in 2022. I issued another survey, but I also performed a series of experiments on campus to demonstrate the magnitude of the disparity between the public health guidelines and their execution. I knew I would be presenting my IP to the Upper School at the end of the year, and I wanted to gather dramatic evidence to support my findings. Campus is full of hand sanitizer dispensers, but I was curious about how often they were used, so I dedicated time before lunch observing sanitizer usage in the lobby of Jeppesen Science and Math Center. There were five dispensers there at the time, yet only 1.5% of observed passersby took hand sanitizer. My second experiment involved a synthetic substance that can’t be seen by the naked eye, but is highly transferable between surfaces. I would strategically disperse a small amount in the morning in just one concentrated spot on campus and record the various places I found it at the end of the day.

Armed with the results of my surveys and experiments, as well as some additional research, I presented my conclusions to the Upper School, and I was met with shock. I then set out to improve compliance with health guidelines.

Thus began my third and current IP. While the project itself is still underway, I’ve started compiling research on the way state and national public health agencies run awareness campaigns, in addition to looking into what precautions are most important and most feasible for a school environment. I also had the fantastic opportunity to speak to Dr. Nirav Shah, principal deputy director of the U.S. CDC and, at the time of my interview, director of the Maine CDC. Dr. Shah suggested some factors I should consider in my research and also gave me insight into public health as a career. For the next mission, I plan on attempting to implement the results of my research. The culmination of my work these last three years will be a paper addressing the best steps the School can take to promote health precautions on campus.

The Berwick Innovation Center, along with Innovation Pursuits, provides a forum for students to have voice and choice in their learning. Students direct the work, which includes academically grounding the pursuit through research, collaborating with a mentor, interviewing experts in the field, documenting the IP, and publicly sharing the pursuit at the Innovation Celebration held in April. Research supports that when students have agency and can direct their discovery, the learning is more meaningful, rewarding, and long-lasting. Beginning in Grade 4, students can participate in the IP program. For the last five years, on average, we have had close to 70 students complete IPs each year. Darcy Coffta, director of innovation and Moira McKinnon, director of college counseling have presented at two national conferences on the connection between students’ IP experience and leveraging the project in the college application process.