Personal Health Project

20 points

Goal: Choose a health topic that is relevant to your life and find out all that you can about it that is helpful and/or interesting to you following these five steps...
1.Project Declaration...you state what you want to do and the reasons for your choice
2. Research...you find and evaluate Four resources that address your topic
3. Project Plan...you develop and describe a plan for doing your project.
4. Progress Reports...you research your topic and organize your report.
5. Write-up...you write a report on your experience.

Step 1: Project Declaration (2 points). Due February 3

Declare your choice of project and submit to the Instructor a report in which you state: 1. the reasons for your choice
2. what you hope to learn or achieve and why
3. any prior experiences that are similar.
At the bottom of this web page are examples of topics Health 1 students in prior courses have addressed.

Step 2: Research (4 points). Due February 24

Consult books, magazines, the Internet, or personal advisors to find four current (no older than five years) resources that address your topic. Here's a list of good resources. Submit to the Instructor a report in which you use these criteria to evaluate each of the four resources. Submit to the instructor the name of each resource, its URL, evaluation score, and your overall evaluation of each.

Step 3: Project Plan (2 points). Due March 3
You must have a plan to do anything well. So, before you begin, submit to the instructor a plan for carrying out your project.

Step 4: Progress Reports (2 points each). On April 11 and April 25, submit to the Instructor progress reports that describe what and how you are doing with your project including any problems you are encountering.

Step 5: Project Write-up (8 points). May 1 Submit to the Instructor a 1000 word personal "story" of your projectas follows:
1. Begin with the reasons you chose your topic.
2. Describe how you went about finding information (including problems you had to overcome)
3. Summarize your findings.
4. Describe the most interesting things you learned and explain the reasons they were important to you.
5. Describe questions that your research could not answer.
6. Describe what doing the project helped you learn about yourself.
7. State whether the project was worthwhile and why.
8. List and evaluate your resources and describe the experience of finding them.

Some examples of Personal Research Projects


You may choose ANY TOPIC of personal interest to you. Here are some that prior students have chosen...

   •   Stress management
   •   Improving sleep
   •   Overweight
   •   Any personal health problem you have
   •   Any personal health problem of yourself or one of your family members
   •   Healthful use of a particular medication
   •   Anxiety disorder
   •   Panic disorder
   •   Depression
   •   Diabetes
   •   High blood pressure
   •   Heart disease
   •   Anorexia, bulimia or other eating disorder
   •   Psychoactive drug use (marijuana, methamphetamines, alcohol, opioid pain medications, heroin etc)
   •   The consequences of being an adult child of alcoholic/drug using parents
   •   Is alcohol abuse hereditary?
   •   Breast cancer
   •   A method of birth control
   •   Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
   •   Alzheimer's Disease
   •   Global warming and health
   •   Food safety
   •   Soda consumption and health
   •   How to quit smoking (for you or someone you know)
   •   Health effects of a particular dietary