Article summaries

Starting Highschool one hour later may reduce teen traffic accidents

                  This article describes the impact that the amount of sleep children get depending on what time school starts has on their behavior and actions. The experiment was carried out and directed by senior author Barbara Phillips, MD, director of the UK Healthcare Good Samaritan Sleep Center in Lexington, KY. They experiment showed that schools that start at later hours such as 9am have better test results than students who wake up for schools starting at  7am. High school students who also drive themselves to school got into less driving accidents when they were better rested. Trafic accidents for students who started school at 9 am were significantly lower than for those starting school at 7 am. I believe this experiment is interesting because it shows the importance of 1 hour more of sleep both in academics and in other social behavior such as driving. Children tend to sleep less during the teenage years because there is so much distraction but they still need a significant (8 to 9 hours) amount of sleep. Making school start later can help remedy this.








Highschool students with a delayed school start time sleep longer, report less day time sleepiness

                  This article reports how the time school starts affects children’s sleep patterns. The experiment was done by Zaw W. Htwe, MD, of Norwalk Hospital's Sleep Disorders Center in Norwalk, Conn. It was done on 259 students who completed the condensed sleeping habits questionnaire. When school started early, the students slept 33 minutes less than they did when the schedule was changed. Also after the change in starting time, it was recorded that many of the students used an average of 83 percent of their extra time to sleep. In my opinion this article is excellent because it shows  in a very concise and precise way that students will use the extra time to actually sleep which will result in more alerts students throughout the day.

Being a night owl in high school is linked with having a lower college GPA

                  This article lead by author Jennifer Peszka, PhD, psychology department chair at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark reports the effect of sleep on GPA. It establishes a connection between the hours slept and the performance of students on academics. Students who sleep less and become night owls tend to have lower GPA’s. The article says that students who are morning persons are more likely to have a higher GPA average such as 3.18 instead of having a low one like 2.84 which is the GPA average for people who are “night owls”. The sample taken was of 89 students with the ages of 17-20 years of age.I like the fact that this experiment was safe and did not involve depriving anyone of sleep, instead it just reported findings. It also summarized some of the stuff we had learnt before that studying too late at night in completely unproductive. Our bodies reach a point where they are exhausted and need sleep in order to actually learn.

http://www.gearlive.com/news/article/q209-night-owls-more-stamina/

http://patdollard.com/2008/06/whats-your-opinion-drunk-driving-hoax-to-scare-teens-out-of-drinking-and-driving-with-video/
http://seaholmhighlander.com/lifestyles/student-life/424-sleepless-in-seaholm