Friday, March 3, 2017

MWHS students write about Being Present!

Today's post is from 9th grader Robby Brustad and 8th graders Carson Meritt & Michael Kurtz

My team and I have had the privilege of working with the student body of MWHS from the beginning of this school year on a Community Problem Solving project called B-Present. Community Problem Solving is a component of the Future Problem Solving Program International. We compete at State Competition on March 25th.

B-Present is a project about cell phone addiction. 80% of teens said they check their phone hourly. This means at our high school that almost 800 kids are checking hourly. 720 kids feel the need to check their phone right away, due to the fact that 72% of kids say they feel the need to immediately respond to texts and social networking messages. This is called FOMO - Fear of Missing Out.

We have had many actions to minimize this addiction at our school. B-Present Week is our biggest initiative. B-Present Week went into action during the week of February, 27th- March, 3rd. This week we focused on educating our student body on cell phone addiction. Michael Kurtz went onto WakeUp Westonka (announcements) and told everyone about this week through an interview with Joey Colianni. Prior to that week we put a video of Michael where he talked about what this project is. This week we were at lunch and had a present that had “B-Present” on it and students would sign their names saying they are going to "be present" in their relationships and mindful and aware of their technology use. The week before the team went to Grandview Middle School during first hour and gave a presentation about phone addiction and what the effects of it are and how to B-Present. Over the next couple weeks there will be a few more videos on WakeUp Westonka. Thank you for participating in B-Present Week.

Robby, Carson & Michael
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