Young scientist Final 2015

 

“The Happiness Project: An Investigation into the effect of a Positive Psychology campaign on students and teachers at Arklow Community College”

 

by Maciek Smyk , Maedbh Murphy and John Naik (2nd Year students)

We all strive to be happy but sometimes negative thinking can get in the way of us feeling good about ourselves and life. The World Health Organisation (2004) is predicting that depression alone will be one of the greatest health problems worldwide by the year 2020. Did you know? Research has found that about 11% of teenagers have a depressive disorder by the age of 18. (National Institute of Mental Health)

The idea for this project came to us, as we were preparing for our annual “Mental Health week” in our school. People are very good at looking after their physical health and we began to think that maybe people do not pay as much attention to their mental health. In this project our aim is to find out the current state of happiness of students and teachers in our school and to promote positive mental habits in our school via “The Happiness Project” Campaign. In this project we will carry out the following:

1.      Research

We will research the science of happiness. What happens in our brain when we are happy? What is positive psychology and mindfulness and how can it help us change how we feel? What are the benefits of meditation? Does feeling gratitude help us be happier about ourselves? Can changing how you think really change how you feel about yourself?

2.      School Survey on the Happiness of students and teachers in our school

We will create an online survey to measure the happiness of people (300) in our school, and analyse the factors that affect their happiness. This survey will help us uncover the overall mood of our school.

3.      “The Happiness Project” Campaign

In this 6 week campaign we will promote a number of positive actions . We will measure their effectiveness on students and teachers by carrying out a pre-test and post-test on all actions.

·         Gratitude Journals: It has been scientifically proven that one of the greatest contributing factors to overall happiness in your life is how much gratitude you show. 25 students and 10 teachers will actively use a gratitude journal daily, noting at least 5 things they are grateful for each day.

·         Meditation: We will introduce 25 students to 5 minutes of mediation per day, using relaxing music. We will also invite any student in our school to a 10 minute lunch time meditation session in the library over this 6 week period.

·         Mindfulness Workshops:

Mindfulness is a technique involving living in the present moment. 25 students will take part in an 8 mindfulness workshops in our school.

·         What I like about you….. Certificate  

We all have positive characteristics about ourselves but we don’t always hear it said to us. In this part of the project, 50 students are invited to write positive comments only about each student in their class. This list of comments will be presented back to the student in a certificate form. We will ask 25 teachers and staff to do the same.

·         Random Acts of Kindness

50 students in our school will commit to carry out 3 random acts of kindness per week. We will ask all students how it made them feel to do this and how it made the other person feel.

·         Positive Quotation Posters

We will create positive affirmation posters and display them on the doors of all toilets in the school and on the walls.

4.      “The Happiness Project” Website:

We will create a website to promote positive thinking and show our progress and results of our campaign.

 

If how we think has an effect on how we feel, then it is really important that teenagers learn the skills of using positive psychology in school, to help them be mentally healthy and happy.