From mental health to the environment, and from pedagogy to international law, Trinity College School’s Advanced Placement Research students are tackling important issues this year. On Thursday, October 15th, the 13 students who comprise the AP Research course introduced their topics during a series of online meetings.

The AP Research course has been offered at TCS since 2014 and is part of the two-year AP Capstone Diploma program. Through the course, students undertake a year-long research project on a focused question in an interdisciplinary topic. By the end of the year, each student will produce a 5,000 word paper and formally present and defend their study. Students’ investigations will help to develop research and reporting skills that will serve them well in post-secondary studies and beyond.

Faculty members Barb Brough and Shelagh Straughan, who lead the AP Research course, invited faculty and AP Seminar students to join each presenter in a Google Meet, allowing guests to interact with and ask questions of the presenters.

This year’s AP Research students and their topics are:

• Alex Northey: “How does the exogenous application of supplemental nutrients in a hydroponics system during the dark cycle affect the productivity of Arabidopsis thaliana (thale cress)?”
• Allie Riihiluoma: “To what extent do television and movies affect how children in the preoperational stage of development (age 2-7) exhibit pretense play?”
• Ayo Eyesan: “Given that a combination of music therapy and pharmacotherapy improves a patient’s symptoms/reduces a patient’s number of depressive relapses, which genre of music yields the best results during the music therapy phase of the treatment?”
• Brent Biscoe: “Acknowledging that the five U.S. inhabited territories owned by the United States are under its jurisdiction and are constitutionally incapable of voting rights and election administration, are there other countries treating territories like this or is the United States unique in this matter?”
• Carly Lin: “Given that sex differences in children’s emotional expression emerge from infancy to adolescence, to what extent do cultural expectations contribute to the development of sex differences in adolescent’s facial, vocal, and behavioural expression of emotions?”
• Emile Hameury: “How effective is Canada’s federal counterterrorism strategy to prevent ISIS cyber terrorism recruitment on social media users between 15 and 25 years old?”
• Evelyn Maguire: “To what extent are Canadian high school students’ potential political opinions influenced by exposure to American political advertisements through social media platforms?”
• Jasleen Billing: “Given that branded direct to consumer (DTC) marketing is a leading cause of over-medicalization, to what extent does over-medicalization of psychotropic drugs affect the corresponding placebo effect in adolescents?”
• Kai Blackstock: “To what extent does the category of misinformation affect the rate of its dissemination online?”
• Kyle Munns: “With the intent to modify pedagogy in order to best suit classrooms with students from diverse language backgrounds, to what extent does the prosody of Shakespeare performance differ between first language students and second language students within first-year drama classrooms in high school?”
• Ty Gadbois: “To what extent do dryland warm-ups affect a high school hockey player’s ability to demonstrate certain skills?”
• Vanessa Lolomari: “To what extent are NGOs following ethical guidelines when photographing international development crises in Africa?”
• Zoe Fingas: “What actions do politicians in Northumberland County and Cobourg Town Council need to take in order to end visible homelessness over the next 10 years?”
• Fiona Miller: “Given the amount of gas and resources used for pleasure craft boats, to what extent could the creation of hydroelectric motor boats reduce pollution and resource depletion, create sustainable economic gain, and support further renewable energy creation and implementation within the Muskokas?”