My name is Maya. I am 11 years old. I have been at MIS for almost 7 years, and I like to play with Legos. I like to help people when I can. I chose my inquiry because I read an article about a teenager named Megan Meier who was diagnosed with depression and committed suicide.
My central idea was: Mental health can affect our relationships.
My lines of Inquiry were:
- The classifications of mental illnesses (form).
- Effect of mental illness on personality and relationships (causation).
- Raising awareness about mental health (responsibility).
My transdisciplinary theme was: Who we are and I focused on emotional management.
My concepts were form, causation and responsibility.
The Learner Profile attributes that I developed were Communicator because you need to tell someone about your mental illness and listen to other advice. I was Reflective because you need to take time and reflect on life.
My UN Goal 3 Good health and wellbeing connects to my inquiry because being healthy is also being healthy in our mind and being happy
My approaches to learning were Self-management skills
- Emotional management: Develop an awareness of our emotions to manage them.
- Resilience: if you have a mental illness you have to be resilient to get help and make sure that you find someone to help you
During my research, I found out
- Depression impacts the lives of many teenagers and adults around the world.
- There are so many challenges for those who have mental illness
- People’s friendships and relationships are getting affected
- You can talk to professionals that can help you manage your mental illness
“A family’s emotional and financial well-being can be greatly affected with psychological problems.”
- A Swedish survey conducted by the Priory Community claimed that over half of their interviewees (the families of people who suffer with mental illness) claimed they have had financial, social, and psychological problems of their own.
Primary Sources: I made a survey for my peers to fill out and I interviewed a psychologist to understand her perspective to gather primary information.
Secondary Sources: I used information from websites as secondary resources.
Here are some of the resources I created to help spread awareness about my inquiry
Google slides link herehttps://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1pfCJ89e81RVSYYolLaFjhMVrR7v7dzM1i39DhWFzcOc/edit?usp=sharing
My slides and will only be accessed via a MISP email id. Parents can log in with a student’s id.
Inquiry that leads to action!
For my action I have created a Pinterest account where I wrote quotes and messages about mental illness for people to get inspired by. I used different skills to create the posters by myself and spread awareness through social media.
I understand that I won’t be able to take action in person or reach out to everyone who bears mental illnesses, but I know that if I am able to make a simple change in even one person’s life I will have completed my goal for this project and made a difference.
I ask you to take action by……. informing people about this issue and donating to organizations that help people that are affected by this.
References: My work cited is available in my presentation.
– Maya