Sleep Deprivation

Students at MHS share their project citizen on sleep deprived teens.

by Bryson Berrett and Keegan Andrus

In order to help students across Idaho with sleep deprivation, seniors at MHS propose their solutions to the problem through project citizen. As these students explain why this topic is important to them. they go in depth on the problem and what they are going to do about it.

“ All of us were just talking about ideas and everything and we all had that one similarity where we’ve all dealt with sleep problems and like all of our friends have dealt with sleep problems too,” Senior Sadie Perrine said.

She later went on to talk about how our school is affected by it.

 ¨In school i mean everyone i know like everywhere sleep is a huge problem, i just think that most people don’t recognize how important sleep is and how much it actually really affects you, in your lives.¨

They explain the wide spread problem of sleep deprivation and how much it not only affects our state but our nation. Through many hours put into research they learned a lot about not only sleep deprivation but also how sleep affects teens.

“ I’ve learned that only 9 percent of students aren’t sleep deprived like in the entire nation, because you’re supposed to get like 9 to 9 and a half hours of sleep and no one gets that so it just made me aware that this is a real problem.” Senior Kacen Cook said.

He later explains just how important getting the right amount of sleep actually is.

¨We have statistics saying that even 15 minutes makes like a big difference in your sleep, it doesn’t sound like a lot but it actually does and like if you nap for 15 minutes that gives you more energy too.¨

Students go further in explanation on their solution and describe the reason for their solution. They tell why they chose the solution of moving the start time of schools back, to allow for students, especially in larger parts of Idaho, to get more sleep.

“Because we’re all sleep deprived,” Senior Ramey Muir said, “We’re trying to push school start times in Idaho back to 8:45.” She later goes on to say how moving the time back to 8:45 in the grades 7-12 will really affect teenagers. She says this was the best plan of action because it had the best results and least amount of backlash and is very easy to get passed.

Many students believe project citizen is a big deal at MHS, because of this students put a lot of effort into their projects. This is evident in the way that they present

“ I think the groups today did really really well, they’ve done their homework, I was really impressed with all the doctors references that they had that said that teenagers basically naturally have later sleep schedules, that was the biggest thing that stood out to me,” Judge and Mrs. Woolf’s Student Teacher said.