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History of Injustices and the Current Interim Government Actions in Bangladesh
Kazi S. Salsabil
The project illustrates the knowledge I obtained through the U-LEAD global leadership course and the research project assessing global issues. This illustration will discuss the past and current situation of Bangladesh. It has only been 53 years since Bangladesh became independent. Unfortunately, the country has a long history of political struggles. The country is recovering from the destabilized government left by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. The purpose of this project is to assess the political and societal obstacles faced by Bangladesh.
Additionally, psychological well-being and accessibility to resources will be evaluated. For this project, I used Google Forms to distribute a survey among Bengali Americans and Bengali citizens to understand their experiences, perceptions of mental health, resource needs, and views of the past and current government. This provided a great insight into the needs of the people of Bangladesh based on their perspectives.
The project taught me the value of resilience and unity and its effect on society. Moreover, this allowed me to relate what I learned from the global leadership course to the research of the global issue project, such as the perspective of global leadership and the different ways to practice the social change model. Furthermore, it allowed me to gain inspiration from youths who were the cause of the recent revolution, which many call the student-led revolution. The hope for a better Bangladesh was possible through the sacrifices and resilience of these youths. This shows that leadership can be portrayed at any age and situation.
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Girl Up: It Is Everyone's Responsibility to Remedy Women's Issues
Joshua Samet
I spent the past semester serving as an Events Director for the Girl Up chapter at UCF. In this role, I had to work with my fellow officers to plan and execute events to help work towards helping the women in our community as well as promoting awareness in the UCF community. Through this service experience, I learned how to better collaborate with fellow leaders, communicate with other community members, and be a more authentic and effective leader. Furthermore, I learned the importance of having a common purpose and how to use that to bring the community together when volunteering.
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What are the Effects of Resource Accessibility within Schools? Experiences of UCP Volunteers
Subrina Seerattan, Gabrielle Lunden, and Sophia Tse
UCP Bailes is a charter school for grades K-8 whose mission is Inclusion. They want to create a safe place for students with special needs in the school environment. The agency is an organization of charter schools specializing in education for students with special needs. All of us are volunteers who have helped in the cafeteria. We help prepare meals for lunch. The lunches are from the state, so we must ensure they follow state guidelines. For example, ensure all the kids have vegetables on their plates that are in good portions. If the kids can’t eat the meal, we substitute the entree for yogurt and string cheese. We also helped kids open their milk, straws, and sauces. Some students are not able to pick up and carry their meals, so we also take turns helping the kids walk to their tables.
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A Look on Mental Health from an Untrained Professional
Akhil Sikha
This is just a poster to talk about the 7cups foundation and how they were able to help me understand basic human psychology. Due to my experience directly talking to people, that was the best way to show me how people work and what makes them say what they say or do what they do. This would always be valuable information as I am working towards my psychology degree to become a lawyer since I require a deep understanding of society. It helps to understand that everyone deals with a similar problem at least fundamentally whether it be anxiety or just low self-esteem and it's useful to draw those experiences since these chatters are looking for insight for not only what they should do but how they should react to an event.
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Beyond Fear: Inspiring Students to Appreciate Sharks and Understand Their Role in the Ocean
Carolina A. Souza, Janelle Seefelt, Jordyn Delikat, and Brianna Rendon
Our team visited a fourth-grade classroom of 26 students at Geneva Elementary School to speak on sharks. We highlighted the ecological significance of sharks, cultural respect for them in Polynesian and Hawaiian cultures, threats facing shark populations, and different ways students could help protect them. Our goal was to address negative stigma surrounding sharks. The students participated in a take-home project where they decorated their own paper bag shark puppet and wrote what they loved about sharks on the back. They also made shark tooth necklaces. Lastly, each student picked a marine organism, decorated it, and glued it onto a class food webposter. We hope that by educating these fourth graders, we have sparked an interest in marine science that will remain with them throughout their lives. Understanding the importance of sharks and the role they play in maintaining a healthy ocean is essential for conservation efforts. This visit allowed us to develop our leadership and scientific communication skills, which are both invaluable to success in the field of marine conservation/restoration.
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HBA1/2 mRNA Expression in UV Exposed Melanoma Cells
Victoria Sulaman and Victoria Woodcock
Progress has been made in finding ways to treat cancer. However, it remains a serious issue as many aspects of it are unclear. Specifically, melanoma is one of the most dangerous cancers because it is known to metastasize quickly. That said, our goal is to determine if there is an upregulation of HBA1/2 mRNA in melanoma cells as a result of oxidative stress from UV treatment. The foundation for this project was based on a paper where researchers found an upregulation of hemoglobin mRNA, specifically HBA1/2 mRNA, within keratinocytes when exposed to UVA radiation (Tahara et al., 2023). Their results suggested that hemoglobin acts like an antioxidant and can reduce oxidative stress, providing a mechanism to keep keratinocytes safe (Tahara et al., 2023). This semester, we conducted preliminary experiments to determine the optimal amount of time to expose our SK-MEL-28 (melanoma) cells to UV radiation, which was 90 minutes. This information will help us proceed with future experiments to figure out if there is a relationship between HBA1/2 mRNA upregulation and UV exposure in melanoma cells.
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Doing Good with Goods and Grace
Piper Sunvold
Goods and Grace is a non-profit grocery store located in Casselberry, Florida, specifically founded to serve the low income community in Central Florida. Goods and Grace’s mission is “To nourish Bodies & Souls with Dignity and Grace” (Goods and Grace, n.d.). They fulfill this mission by providing lower priced grocery store items to families that meet the low income requirements, and by providing members with advice on job hunting, cooking, and other areas. While serving with Goods and Grace, I was a cashier, who checked people out as well as restocked shelves. However, there were also many people who just needed someone to talk to, and I was happy to sit and listen to them. During this service project, I learned so much about how we can better serve low income families, such as providing them with the tools to get out of their situations, or by simply just being a good listener for them. I would estimate that through this service project, I was able to impact about 50 people, as about five customers come in every hour.
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Service-Learning Course
Shanzida Toha
Reflecting on my service-learning experience, I recognize that I used to judge first-generation immigrants who struggled with English. Over time, I realized this was unfair, as I hadn’t considered their individual challenges. This shift in perspective led me to become more open-minded, seek new experiences, and pursue my passion for helping others through direct patient care. I realized that engaging in leadership-based service learning could enhance my empathy and leadership abilities, which has become central to my personal and professional growth.
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What Effect does Helminth Infection have on an Adult's Immune System?
Shanzida Toha
The research question is, how does the prevalence of helminth infections impact the immune system of adult patients? To clarify this subject: How does the prevalence of helminth infections affect the immune system of adult patients? Specifically, can helminth exposure help individuals reactivate T-cells to improve immunity and mitigate TB while providing preventative benefits for metabolic conditions?
This concept suggests that we could explore helminth-based therapies to treat or even prevent metabolic conditions that are precursors to cardiovascular disease. Such a therapeutic approach could be revolutionary, especially for populations without access to costly medications like insulin or blood pressure drugs. The idea that helminths could help in regulating inflammatory markers, repairing tissue damage, or even bolstering immune responses opens new avenues for medical science and public health interventions.
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Love Serving Autism
Zephaniahn Torres
My name is Zephaniahn Torres, I am in the LEAD Scholars Academy where my Service-Learning class 3215 is focused on healthcare in the community. My project encapsulates the volunteer work I did with a non-profit organization called Love Serving Autism. This organization focuses on teaching children and adults with autism how to play tennis. This is very beneficial to the kids as they learn vital life lessons as well as engage in physical activity that's fun. I indulged in this service weekly on Saturdays at the UCF Tennis Courts. In my project I discuss my role as a volunteer and the impact I have been making to the kids and adults with autism. I dive deep into how valuable this experience is for the kids and how enriching it is for the volunteers.
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What is the impact of bilingual reading and inclusivity to young students?
Phia Tse and Miguel Torres
The Bilingual Reading at the Creative School for Children was initiated as the group project for our LDR 2001 class. Our project was to find an organization that aligned with our values and had an issue we would like to bridge. We chose reading in different languages to children because we remember what it is like to be different, and the lasting effect it has on a child. Reading in multiple languages increases diversity awareness and educates children in understanding multiple languages through an increase in plasticity (Abbas, 2018). We used the Social Change Model of Leadership to navigate and create this project and we also implemented it through the readings. Results showed student engagement, assisting with literacy rates, increased knowledge of diversity.
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Respect and Protect: Education About the Realities of Sexual Battery
Axani J. Turin and Connor Kirkland
OUR PROJECT RAISED AWARENESS ABOUT SEXUAL BATTERY AMONG UCF STUDENTS. IN COLLABORATION WITH DETECTIVE BECKER FROM UCFPD, WE CREATED AND DISTRIBUTED EDUCATIONAL FLYERS DETAILING PREVENTIVE MEASURES, RESPONSE STEPS, AND AVAILABLE SUPPORT THROUGH UCFPD AND TITLE IX. WE AIMED TO EMPOWER STUDENTS WITH KNOWLEDGE FOR PROTECTION, EMPHASIZING THAT WHILE VICTIMS ARE NEVER TO BLAME, UNDERSTANDING PREVENTION CAN REDUCE RISK.
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Creating Moments of Magic: Volunteering at Give Kids The World
Parker R. Tyson
As part of my service-learning project, I volunteered with Give Kids The World Village, a nonprofit dedicated to offering memorable vacations for children with critical illnesses and their families. With over 100 hours of service, I participated in activities that helped create a welcoming environment for guests. This experience taught me the importance of compassion and empathy in service. I am extremely grateful to have volunteered for such a great organization.
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ACEing Autism Orlando: Serving Up Smiles
Hannah R. Wagner
Hannah Wagner is a Sophomore at the University of Central Florida (UCF) pursuing a degree in Public Administration. She began her journey with ACEing Autism in 2017 as a volunteer with the Weston chapter and became our Orlando Program Director in 2024. Hannah currently serves on the UCF President Leadership Council, Volunteer UCF Board of Directors, and is an after-school enrichment program coordinator for UCP Charter Schools. Although Hannah is not a tennis player, she has a passion for working within the autism community and looks forward to sharing this with participants, parents, and volunteers.
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Showing Kindness to children with special needs through buddy break
Alexis Williams
The purpose of this project was to discuss the organization Nathaniel's Hope and their Buddy Break opportunity. Buddy Break provides parents of children with special needs with a break while also providing the best day ever to children with special needs. This organization has left an important impact on the community as it has allowed both families and children to connect with one another.
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Personality, Demographics, and Drug Use: Exploring the Links Between Traits, Background, and Consumption
Erik Williams, Rudolph Reid, and Stephan Looten
In this study, we examine the relationship between drug consumption, demographics, personality traits, and behavioral traits. All basic assumptions were met for our dataset and removing a few values with impossible outliers was our only major change. There were some collinearity issues found but due to the importance of certain values, we didn't remove any variables. We started off with a model of N-score as the response and predictors of: Impulsive, SS, Age, Gender, Alcohol, Cannabis, age and alcohol interaction, and age and cannabis interaction. Through model selection, we removed the interaction terms and ran our multiple linear regression on the remaining model. We then examined MSE and MAE of which we found that this model is not an overfit. From the regression, we ended up with an F-statistic of 7.915 and a p-value < 2.2e-16. The low F-statistic suggests that the model has weak explanatory power and the low p-value tells us that the model is statistically significant. The presence of these conflicting values, tells us that we can't interpret a practically important measure of prediction using our model.
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Destigmatizing Mental Health
Hayma H. Win
My project focused on mental health and the sigma surrounding the topic. I knew from the start I wanted to work one on one with people as opposed to a large group. Working at 7Cups was such an eye opening experience to how many people felt that the only people they could talk to about their issues was an anonymous face online. A lot of mental health services aren’t equipped to handle mental health issues that require more research and care. 7Cups taught me to be more empathetic. Everyone struggles with something different, no matter how trivial it may seem to you, it could be the end of the world for them. It’s everyone’s first time living on this earth, so everyone deserves the same grace and kindness no matter what they are going through.
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The Impact of Gun Violence: A Study on Mass Killings in the United States
Abigail Wright, Oma Persaud, and Tindrew Chen
This study examines the impacts of gun violence in the United States from 2006 to October 2024, focusing on factors influencing the casualties in mass shooting incidents. Utilizing the predictors: number of offenders, region, location, incident type, and gun type we employed a Negative Binomial Regression Model due to its suitability for handling high variance and over-dispersion in the response variable. The dataset "Mass Killings in America" reports 1,018 casualties from over 100 incidents in the past four years alone. This research sheds light on correlations between the predictors and response, providing valuable insights to enhance community vigilance and prevention efforts.
