AP Research Week 6: Presentations And Final Submissions

Hello everyone! Last week was the final week for submitting our finished papers and doing the presentations. It has been a pretty hectic week overall, but we got it all done! For this week, I would like to just quickly summarize all of the research that I have been doing.

The main purpose of this study was to examine the correlation between environmental factors such as time being spent doing near-work activities, time being spent outdoors, and diet to the prevalence of myopia in the adolescent Jewish population within Brooklyn. Overall, although weak correlations coupled with no statistically significant data disproved the hypothesis of this study, the study still ultimately fulfills a gap in the research. The gap included having little research conducted about the general Jewish adolescent population in the city of Brooklyn and a study that incorporated all three environmental factors within the scope of the topic of inquiry, which have been successfully accomplished despite the hypothesis being disproven. In addition, the results of this study pave the way for the new understanding that has been reached, which is that instead of environmental factors playing the most dominant role in the development of myopia, genetics may play a more significant part as seen within pre-existing research such as Jiali Li & Qingjiong Zhang, 2017 and Stambolian et al., 2004. There is also the potential for other environmental factors not mentioned within this study such as urbanization and education level that could play a more significant role in the onset of myopia than do near-work activities, being outdoors, and diet. In sum, due to myopia’s highly complex nature and various potential causes for development, further investigation into this topic is needed in order to gain a better understanding of the subject as a whole. The implications and limitations of this paper also serve as a catalyst for future research to be conducted about the correlation of both environmental factors and genetics to the prevalence of myopia.

That is all for this week and potentially the end of this blog, unless I am needed to do more. It’s been stressful, but fun at the same time. I wish everyone all the best with their own projects. -Alan