Major
Biological Sciences
Advisor
Brian Plouffe
Advisor Department
Biological Sciences
Date
5-2022
Keywords
Middle School, Pandemic, Social Barriers, Covid
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 License.
Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic has had devastating effects on all factors of society, many still unknown. One of the obvious effects has been how it affects children in school. Middle school students are a part of this unique moment in history. The pandemic and its move to virtual learning has created a lasting impact on middle schoolers’ social skills at the most important time in their development. Quarantine required children to be incredibly isolated from their peers and life activities, in general. Instead, many were overexposed to social media which hindered their ability to interact with peers. I have chosen to study these effects and help a group of eighth graders transitioning to high school soon. I worked with students at the Islamic School of Rhode Island for this project. An anonymous survey administered to eighth graders guided my research themes. I then devised three areas to present to students and aid them in navigating high school in a pandemic: Extracurriculars and Branching Out, Self Confidence and Social Awareness, Socializing and Safety in Technology. The goal is to provide them with some of the key skills they lost during the months they were virtually learning, to create personal boundaries, build their identities, and increase awareness of the world they live in and the one created online. The survey was then administered again to measure the impact of the information I presented to them.
Media Format
embedly
Included in
Elementary Education Commons, Mental and Social Health Commons, Online and Distance Education Commons