In English teacher Angela Dryer’s year-long AP Research class, students dedicate themselves to one topic, which they explore and learn about throughout the entire year; this school year, Ashlyn Sawarynski is one of those students.

Sawarynski is a senior at Arvada West High School and has recently made her AP Research project known around the school through lobbying for her student-based sleep study. Recently, she went around to individual classes inviting students to join the study so that she could get statistics for her research. Those who participated were asked to fill out a form asking what time they went to bed, what time they woke up, and what time their first class started. Some teachers even offered extra credit to those who joined in the study in order to help Sawarynski gather her data. 

With only three questions, it may not seem like a lot of information, but it’s very helpful to Sawarynski, who states, “It would not be possible without them. I would have zero data and therefore no project. I appreciate every single person who has taken any amount of time out of their day to participate in this study. It means so much to me and helps me see the most accurate portrayal possible of the relationship between the consistency of school start times and students’ sleep patterns.” 

Using data from students in the school helped to give Sawarynski more research to go off of and connected the project to A-West at a local level.

Dryer, sees many different forms of writing and research, and according to her, “It’s only been usually one or two students that use surveys and it’s easiest and most applicable to do it with our own population because we have a principal behind us.” 

Depending on the student’s topic, data from around the school can be incredibly helpful to make their project more relevant to the school. Some of AP Research’s topics don’t relate to the school or the students though, making a survey or other form of finding data essentially useless. However, for Sawarynski’s topic, this data is crucial.

Through finishing this project Sawarynski hopes to, “build a more accurate idea of how school start times affect students.” She adds that it’s, “essential knowledge for people of any age. I don’t know what the data will say, but based upon that I’d love to present my findings to Mr. Porter or even the district. This research is truly essential to the mental, physical, academic, and long term health of students, so I would love to take it to someone who can use it to implement real, beneficial change.” Collecting real-world data from a school that recently felt the effects of a start time change can really help to determine the effects sleep consistency has on students. 

Before finally settling on the topic of sleep consistency, Sawarynski considered a couple other ideas. Students in the class came up with a base topic ove

r the summer which eventually evolved throughout the process of figuring out whether their topic idea was actually viable or not. Sawarynski first came into the class wanting to research the mental state of psychopaths but, through the development of the topic she realized it wasn’t an easy one to research. She then moved onto the difference in mental health between students at montessori vs. public school; however, after more time she realized that wasn’t the best fit either.

Dryer says, “She realized it was such a big topic she couldn’t. Then she thought she was really interested in how tired she always was and then she started doing research on sleep and realized, ‘Oh, sleep consistency matters.’”  

Sawarynski’s topic is one that is very relevant to life inside and outside of school for students; when Jeffco Public Schools decided to change school start times for the 23-24 school year, many families found that it would be harder to get their children to school. 

While this decision was one that upset many families, it was not without reason. Using data from 2015 the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) found that more than seven out of ten students in grades 9-12 were not getting enough sleep on school nights. This data along with other research made Jeffco decide to push start times later in hopes of having students get more sleep. Sawarynski now can look at how this change has affected the time students go to bed and wake up in the morning, and although it’s not the point of the research, it has had an effect on the students’ sleep consistency throughout time. 

AP Research not only provides students a place to dig deep into a topic they enjoy, but it also pushes them to keep trying and figure out how to properly research a topic as they would at a college. “The one thing I get from all of them is they go into college and they are ahead of the game. Their professors are like, ‘You’ve done actual research?’ because they understand actual scientific research methods. They get into higher level classes because they know how to do preliminary research,” Dryer says. 

Although AP Research is a class that very much focuses on the research and study aspect of topics, it is also a small community of four seniors, with a teacher that supports them all.

As the teacher of the class, Dryer helps Sawarynski and her peers improve, “Mrs. Dryer is constantly pushing us to do better, to think about our projects from all angles, to acknowledge our own bias, and to continue raising the bar for ourselves. She puts pressure on us, for good reason, but is also one of the most supportive teachers I’ve ever had the pleasure to work with,” says Sawarynski. 

With AP Research being such a small class Sawarynski says her peers are also some of her best supporters. “None of this would be possible without the amazing group of students in AP Research: Rhiannan Danborn, Tasiana Parker, and Mark Redford. All four of us have such different interests, strengths, and weaknesses, which is excellent because we all help each other in different ways.” 

With such an amazing group behind her, it’s no wonder Sawarynski will soon get to see her project finished, all thanks to her dedication and the help from her fellow peers.