Project by: Ruby Hutchins (11th Grade)
Project Advisor: Ann Caroll
Student(s)’s Advisor(s): Preethi Mcknight

Description of the Project: 

For this honor’s project I really wanted to learn more about how many students are reading the news on a daily basis, what kind of news they’re reading, and through what platforms are they getting their information. I did a survey and sent it out to the whole student body asking these questions and more, and I figured out a lot of things that helped me create the display that I did towards the end of the trimester. I made a little news section right outside of the cafeteria and every week I would update it with current news stories under different genres, to make sure that I was helping keep students informed.

Final Product (e.g., documents, images, video, audio, poster, display, etc.):

Final Update/Reflection:

Overall, I think this project went really well. I learned a lot about where people get their news, how many people are even watching/reading/listening to the news daily, and how I could help keep the student body politically aware especially at the start of the pandemic. This project inspired me to create the Good News Newsletter which is a new honor’s project I’m doing where I’m sending two newsletters a week to the high school students body and teachers, and the middle school faculty as well. I had planned to do an honor’s project related to this one but make it a physical space with actual articles on paper for students to read, but now with LREI @ Home, a newsletter seemed like the perfect way to keep everyone up to date on current news stories and focus on positive ones because so much of the news we’re all hearing right now is so negative. I’m very happy that I completed this political awareness honor’s project because it was a great first step and jumping off point and it helped me realize all the next steps that I could take to help keep LREI’s students and faculty informed.

Update on Progress from Weeks 1-3 (include any photos or video if relevant):

I decided that I wanted to know more about how students get their news, and how often they really are learning about the news because of what is going on currently in the news. The first step I took was to do research and I found a study done in San Fransisco on teenagers and what sites they’re getting their news from. I was really surprised by what they found, it being very different than what I had originally thought I would find. They did a survey on teenagers and found that over half of them were getting their news from social media, and half of those teens were getting it from youtube. Only 41 percent were actually getting it from direct news sources which is a dangerously small percentage. The most surprising finding for me was that the teenagers who were getting their news from social media sites, and youtube, believe that the news they’re getting isn’t accurate. 70 percent of the students reported that they believe that news reported by news sources is accurate, while only 38 percent believe that news they’re getting from celebrities, youtube channels, and their social media feed is accurate, and 61 percent believe that it is inaccurate. This worries me a lot because such a large portion of teenagers in this day and age are consuming news from their social media feeds, even though they know the information they’re getting is inaccurate.

Update on Progress from Weeks 4-6 (include any photos or video if relevant):

I then sent out my own survey to the whole student body to see where LREI students get their news, how often they check the news, and whether or not they would trust reputable/direct news sites more than their social media feeds. I found that most LREI students get their news from family and friends, T.V. news, and Instagram/Snapchat. Almost everyone who filled out the form said that they’re getting their news from their family or friend group, and most said that those people have a big impact on their political opinions. This all surprised me because I had thought that newspapers and youtube would be the main sources of news for students, but that really wasn’t the case. Only about one out of three students get their news from newspapers (online and print), and from youtube. I also found that only a quarter of students believe the news they’re getting is accurate. Almost 75 percent of students said that their news is sometimes or usually accurate which was what I was expecting. And only about 60 percent of students wrote that they check the news regularly, which seems a little alarming to me. It means that 40 percent of students aren’t as knowledgable about what’s going on in the world.

 

 

Update on Progress from Weeks 7-9 (include any photos or video if relevant):

For these last few weeks, I have worked on using the information I got from the survey I did, and thinking about how I could give the student population a space for specific news articles since many of them stated that they would rather be consuming news from direct news sources. Ann helped me pick a place where I could display different news stories and was a place where students would actually look at it and read them. We thought outside the cafeteria would be the perfect place since all students would pass by it at least twice during the day, and because there are many students who hang out by the benches down there. I didn’t want to just focus on politics because that doesn’t interest everyone, and many people have different political views, so I decided that each Wednesday I would put up five different news stories. One would be relating to American politics, one related to something that’s happening internationally, one that has had an effect globally, one relating to social justice, and one relating to the environment. I’ll definitely switch the articles every week and Wednesday seemed like a good idea because then I can have the first part of the week to find recent news stories and put them up.