SLC | S21W5 : Mini Research for Students |@bhaiaslam|
Assalam-o-Alaikum!
I hope that you will be well with the blessing of Allah Almighty. I am very glad to join this contest because the title of this contest influenced me a lot to join it. The topic is mini-research which means new chances to research the surroundings. In my point of view, it is an amazing and most interesting thing that I ever visited on Steemit. Moreover, this contest will enable me to enhance my critical thinking and logical point of view. I am from Pakistan and working at a health department. Therefore, I thought that I should join this contest as it would be helpful to increase my research knowledge.
| ✅1. Determine the topic of the mini-research for your students and why the research needs to be done by the students. |
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- The topic that was suggested by my team is "Why is the number of glasses increasing in teenagers?"
Topic of mini-research.
I went to a school and noted that about 4 in 10 students have glasses on their eyes. I made up my mind to make this point the topic of this contest. I gathered some students and distributed them into teams according to their tasks. One of the groups was the students having their permanent glasses.
Importance of mini-research topic
Do you remember that our parents in our childhood used to advise us to stay away from television because of its most harmful impact on the eyes? But unfortunately, millions of teenagers have to wear these glasses. At last, what is the reason for weak eyesight in teenagers? From my point of view, it is a fact that eye-sight is affecting day by day and no one, especially in my society, is paying attention to the root causes. People are just using glasses or contact lenses for weak eyesight and It has been a common problem in my society. It has become a hypothesis that when eyesight is weak just wear the glasses and the problem is solved. But from my point of view, there should be awareness of why eyesight is going to be weak day by day and what are the root causes that are increasing myopia in teenagers.
This is because of this reason this research carries importance from my point of view. Here are some more reasons.
i) The exploration of socio-biological issues among students.
ii) Collaborative Learning Among Students
iii) Advancing to understand the scientific methods
iv) Cultivate Creativity Through Innovative Curriculum Development
This topic of research includes the development of understanding social issues from a scientific or biological point of view and the understanding of the importance of scientific data collection and social observation. The main importance is that the students of an elementary school can easily comprehend the topic of research and also they can collect data for the desired task.
| ✅2. Formulate a problem or two, then develop some relevant interview questions to answer the problem. |
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Formulation of a problem
Do you remember that our parents usually used to advise us not to watch enough television otherwise we would have to wear glasses. But the sad thing you know what, today the glasses have been worn. Millions of teenagers have to wear glasses. This is a serious problem that most people even nations are ignoring it. If someone can't see properly at some distance it means that he has nearsightedness which is called Myopia. The data shows the shocking increase in myopia in my own country Pakistan. About 36.5% of the youngsters over 30 years have myopia.
Here is a video introduction of these students in which one can hear the experiences of the students.
Development of interview questions to be answer
So, I decided to choose this topic and prepared some of the questions to be answered with the help of my team.
- Why the number of glasses are increasing?
- What were the teenagers' conditions before wearing glasses while having myopia?
- What do you feel after wearing glasses?
- Do you like to wear glasses?
- Which activities are responsible for their weak eyesight, according to their personal experience?
| ✅3. Assign your students to conduct research using the prepared interview questions, observe every activity the students do, and share photos and videos during the activity. |
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Interview Guidelines
The following guidelines were given to my students during the interview.
- Greet other students or random individuals with a confident smile.
- Extend your hand firmly to shake hands with them.
- Introduce the mini-research project and emphasize its significance.
- Outline the goals of our research with conviction.
- Ensure the setting is comfortable and distraction-free.
- Observe the behavior of your interviewee.
- Be patient and humble with your interviewee.
Observation of Activities
I assigned tasks to my students who were present in a group and guided them about those tasks.
- Awais (Grade 10 CR of mini-research) The boy you are looking at in this picture is Awais from grade 10th of the same school where I visited and all the activities were performed. To make my teamwork useful, efficient, and productive, I selected one of the students named Awais. He was selected for CR for this research as he is the proctor of this class and has taken the first position in Grade 9 in his school. So, he was the main person who led all the candidates for this research project.
He was assigned a task to collect other team members and conduct interviews of the students wearing the glasses.
Moreover, other members were also assigned certain tasks. Two other members joined us to conduct the interviews of the students. I distributed them into a team. One of the groups was assigned a task to take the interviews of the students while the other group was assigned the task of controlling cameras. That group also wrote down the expressions and experiences of the interviewee students.
Here are some of the members who joined us to share their experiences about eyesight and glasses.
- Hafiz Ali Raza
The first student who joined us is Hafiz Ali Raza of grade 10. He shared his experience of how his eyesight weakened and what he felt about wearing the glasses. He said that his eyesight became weak due to doing near work and not doing outside activities. His points are interesting and I will explain it later in the next section of this blog. Moreover, he said that he wants redemption from his glasses but unfortunately, due to a lack of expert doctors in my area he still cannot get redemption.
- Noman
Another student who joined us is Noman. He is the class fellow to the same student that I showed you in the previous picture. He shared his experience that his eyes became weak due to playing a lot of games on his mobile exclusively at night when the brilliant light of his mobile affected his eyes badly and made him patient with myopia. Moreover, he also said that he watched many movies at night which also affected his eyesight badly. The answer of redemption was positive which means that he also wants redemption from his glasses.
- Salman
This is Salman who is a patient of myopia and he shared his experience with us in these words that he is feeling guilt after his glasses because in Summer there is to fact a lot of difficulties when sweat enters his eyes. Moreover, he said that he would do his best to get back his normal eyesight.
- Zeeshan
He wanted to be a toilet in the Air Force of Pakistan but now it has been hard because of his glasses as he told. He also wants to get rid of his glasses. His family members have many good doctors and after his matriculation, he has decided on LASIK surgery.
- Fahad
Fahad is 10th Grade student and he wears glasses because of his weak eyesight. He has shared his experience in the form of a video and he says that he does not want redemption because he has no other option besides glasses. He also shared that he feels pain and stress in his head after wearing the glasses.
- Danial
Danial is 9th Grade student and he claimed to have congential myopia. That may be true because there are some cases in my city where the children congenitally have weak eyesight. Danial said that he was just 6 years old when he had to wear glasses.
| ✅4. Explain and elaborate on any interesting findings that occurred during the research and what are the conclusions of the research results? |
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Elaboration of interesting findings occurred during research
Documentation & Literal Studies
Here are some interesting findings that were researched by me during my studies in the form of documentation and literature studies. All the facts have been listed below.
Myopia as Pandemic It's undeniable that myopia has emerged as a significant issue that we can no longer overlook today. In one of the research papers, I read that the myopia rate was 28% in the world in 2010 and in 2050 it may increase to 50% which means that every second person in the world may have myopia. But the main question is why this all is happening and if someone is already wearing the glasses can he be cured naturally? And if someone has no glasses or myopia then how he can protect his eyes in the world of smartphones? And what are the real causes behind Myopia? Let's try to understand the answers to these questions which is the main object of this research of this blog.
But before going to research first of all let's understand how our eyes work. Here are some visionary graphs created by AI Software to comprehend the workings of human eyes.
A human eye works like a convex lens. A lens that converges the coming rays of light to a certain point is a convex lens. The point in the human eye on which all rays collect is called Focal Point. And the focal point is called Retina. If a human eye is working properly, then the right comes from the source and enters through the cornea and then passes by the pupil and then the lens. After that, all the rays converge on the focal point or retina.
Made with computer graphics
Source: Co-pilot AI-Software
There is an optic nerve connected to the retina and moves to Visual Cortex which is a part of the human brain that processes images. Here is another interesting fact. It is written in the textbooks that the lens works to bend the light but the cornea in the human eye works more than the lens to bend the light. About 70% of the light is bent by the cornea. It means that if your eyes are not working well and you have myopia or hyperopia the structure of your cornea has been changed. When people have myopia the whole structure of their eyeballs may change. So, according to this, if someone has myopia then the focus of light must be before the retina in one case. And the second case, if you have fear-sightedness or weak eyesight near a distance, you have hyperopia or hypermetropia. In this case, the eyeball is squished and the light converges after the retina, and the things at near distance look blurry.
- Another interesting fact is that children of 1-2 Years have hyperopia naturally which means that they can't see near objects clearly and over time after the age of two years, their eyes start to become normal.
Another fact is that humans have fixed focal lengths but still we can see objects of near and far distances. And if the focal length changes, it means that our lens must change its condition. Our lens indeed changes its condition to change the focal length of the human eye. This is right and this job is done by the ciliary muscles that are present in the human eyes and work to contract and relax the eyeball and lens. To test it, watch at your finger at some distance and then move it nearer to the eyes, as the finger is moving nearer to the eye, the stress on your muscles and eyeballs is increasing.
Source: DALL-E AI-Software
When someone sees the object of a far distance then the muscles become relaxed and when someone sees the objects of a near distance the ciliary muscles contract. This all is done to change the shape of the lens. This ability of human eyes is called Accomodation.
Our ciliary muscles have certain limits, and up to that limit, they cannot change the shape of the human eye or cannot perform the processes of contraction or relaxation.
Why Myopia Happens?
But the main question is why myopia happens and why the eyeballs change their shape permanently.
Three theories are involved to support this question.
Near Work Theory
Some scientists formulated a hypothesis that the more time we spend looking near things, the more will be the stress on our eyes. The more our ciliary muscles have to work and longer our eyeball will be in a rounder and squeezed state. And as long as the eyes balls are squeezed, the more difficult it will be to relax back. It is Near Work Theory. As more time you spend reading books, and looking at the screen of your phone or laptop the higher the strain on your eyes. It was studied that the students that study at Oxford University are myopic patients as compared to military recruits. But today, this near-work theory can be extended to the smartphones, laptops, and computers that have been a major source of near-work. The near-work theory is a good explanation but it has been very difficult to prove it. Many scientific studies have found loopholes in this theory. Recently in 2015, conducted a meta-analysis which resulted in the fact that every hour of doing near work in a week increases the chances of myopia by 2%.
Source: Co-pilot AI-Software
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DNA Theory
But before this, there was another theory that scientists believed for years that it was the main cause of myopia. Scientists have believed for years that there is no reason for myopia, it is just related to DNA that human receives from parents. But this theory started to fail in the early 1970s in Alaska in which it was noticed that the teenagers of a tribe had myopia while none of the older people had it. About 50% of the youngsters were myopic patients and this big change was not due to DNA, as was formulated. It was also studied that the children of that tribe were adopting the culture of the Western world, which means they started to work on books and nearer objects. Here born the Near Work Theory. But this near-work theory was not a big discovery because before 1970, a German astronomer John Kepler published his work by the title of "Astronomiae Pars Optica" in which he described this theory.
Source: Co-pilot AI-Software
Outside Theory
Some studies rejected the near-work theory and questioned whether is it the right theory to believe. Myopia is caused by people doing near-work activities or there is another reason behind myopia. The reason that is co-related to Near Work activities could be caused by myopia. Here was hypothesized the third and the most accurate theory the Outside Theory. According to this theory, the near-work activities are not causing myopia, instead, the highest prevalence of myopia is due to the factor that the children are spending less time in the outdoor regions. Yes, this is the statement of the most accurate theory. If you look around, this theory makes sense because many children and teenagers have become indoor prisoners and they do not spend their time in outdoor activities. It was also studied that exposure to the day is the main variable of myopia. Today, most scientists believe that the outside theory is the most acceptable theory and the main reason for myopia. In 2008, a study on 4000 children was made in which their activities were observed. And the observer reached the main conclusions. What outdoor activities the children were participating in, does not matter. They are just doing outdoor activities is important. The main conclusion is that the more we spend time in outdoor activities, the risk of myopia will be less.
Source: DALL-E AI-Software
Myopia as a disease of Affluence
Myopia is often called the disease of affluence which means that rich countries have more cases of myopia as compared to poor countries because in rich countries people do indoor work and they spend more time on screens while this ratio is less in poor countries where people do outdoor jobs.
Remedies of Myopia
In 2010, a program was started by the govt. of Taiwan. The name of the program was Tian-Tian 120 in which schools were told to ensure that the students spend at least 120 minutes in outdoor activities. After some years of implementation of this program, a big positive change was recorded, and that was a fall in 3% of myopic risks. It means that the children spent two hours each day in outdoor activities, and the glasses need for glasses decreased. This is because exposure to light for 120 minutes each day can protect someone from myopia.
Keep your exposure to daylight
How much daylight is needed to prevent us from myopia? Actually by exposure to daylight, the production of dopamine increases in our retina. Dopamine is a chemical that has different tasks even to give us pleasure. It has another work of regulation of eye growth. It prevents the eyes from elongation and if it is in a lesser amount then the chances of permanent elongation increase. The question of the amount of daylight exposure is still unclear but it is believed that the light of 10,000 LUX is enough for the regulation of the described chemical. When someone is sitting inside a building then the light of 1000 lux becomes difficult to cross but a bright day may have a light of 100,000 LUX which is enough to produce dopamine in the retina.
Physical Challenges
Try to play games like tennis, cricket, and table tennis because in such games your eyes have a good chance to contract and relax and therefore these games can prevent us from myopia.
Remedies for myopic patient
Unfortunately, myopia is an irreversible process and once your eyes become elongated, they cannot go back again. But you can prevent your eyes from further elongation. The only method to restore eyesight is LASIK surgery in which the shape of the cornea is changed and with the help of a laser the microscopic amount of cornea is removed to restore the vision and this process takes time 10-15 minutes.. The anesthetic eye drops are used for the reduction of pain. Overall, it is a safe procedure if someone treats his eyes from an expert. After this procedure, there is no need to wear glasses or contact lenses.
Conclusion
The overall conclusion of this research is that myopia is not a joke because people may think that we just have to wear glasses and what is the problem with it. Glasses will fix everything. But a fact is that the latest scientific studies have shown that myopia and blindness are significantly co-related to each other. A study published in IOVS predicted that up to 2050 about 9.8% of the world population may have high-grade myopia. It means the number of glasses is more than -6 D and high-grade myopia means an increase in the chances of risk. This is because the retina is present in the eyes in a finite amount but if the eyes keep on growing more and elongating retina becomes thin and spreads in the eyes and the worst cases the retina will be much thinner than it may cause retinal tear and if the thin retina becomes out after being ripped, it is then called retinal detachment. It is an untreatable condition and leads to complete blindness of the patient.
Prepared on Canva
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All the research has been solely done by me and my team. We all tried to perform our tasks in the best ways and many research articles and magazines like Event Magazine , Economist , BBC and IJo etc. were studied. We studied more than 13 articles during the research of this blog. Moreover, our team members also consult doctors who are famous for eye treatment in my area and we moved to a city where we meet experts in this case to note down their remarks. |
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| ✅5. According to your observations, what are the weaknesses of the students during this research, and what are your steps in developing their analytical skills in the future? |
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Weakness of the students
According to my observation, there were many weaknesses of the students that I noticed during the research of this blog. Some of them are listed below.
- Non-serious behaviour
One of the biggest hurdles that I faced during the research from my students was their non-serious behavior about research. From my point of view, as it was the first time for my students to participate in a research project they were unaware of the ethics and regulations of research. Due to this, my CR of the research told me about the multiple times of camera replacing and re-shooting of scenes.
- Steps to develop this skill
Still, I am very happy to see the quality of the video that I uploaded has been captured from a backward area with the first experience of the students. In the future, I plan to develop skills in video and photography in a disciplined manner. Moreover, I will try my best to join such contests which must include the collaboration of students and teachers.
- Lack of Data Analysis
There was also a problem of lack of data analysis from my students and about 60% of research work was done by me. My students performed 40% work due to a lack of confidence in my point of view. I was only assigned the responsibility to consult doctors and random people and little in the documentation and literature studies. The rest of the literature work and editing was performed by me & by my CR.
- Development Steps
I also have a plan to assign research work from different sources to my students to build their self-research skills. I would try my best to teach them the importance of surveys and types of surveys.
| From my point of view these were two major loopholes of my students during research. Moreover, the problems that I faced with carrying a camera and direction are in my consideration and I would learn it first to teach my students later. |
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Closing & regards
Finally, I would like to say that this contest increased my knowledge and enabled me to do something new after a long time and the experience of interviews and the interest of CR and other students influenced me to do such work with high frequency. The learning skills and collaboration of students with each other during the research pleased me. I noticed a good sense of teamwork among the students. I would like to invite @humaidi, @amjadsharif, and @mohammadfaisal to join his context.
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