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Dea Flores Turns Video Games into a Winning Science Fair Project (Transcript)

It goes in this way, right?

Dea: I like to take APs and Honors a lot because it gives me extra points on my GPA. I have Computer Science Programs first period and Physiology for second, and third period I have AP U.S. History.

Narrator: Dea Flores is very busy.

Dea: Fourth period I have AP English. Fifth period I have Math Analysis, and after school, I have track.

Narrator: Instead of going to her local school, Dea commutes across town to Bravo Medical Magnet High School in East Los Angeles.

Dea: I didn't want to come to Bravo. I wanted to go to a different school. And my parents, they forced me to come here, and I hated them for it for, like, a couple of months, but then I understood they were right. As a Blue Ribbon School, it is a very great educational program.

Alan, you're my guinea pig?

I'll be your guinea pig.

Narrator: Dea is excelling at Bravo. She recently designed an experiment for her physiology class using biofeedback equipment and video games.

Dea: Well, I came up with the hypothesis that people who play video games more might actually have a lower stress level than people who didn't. So I started asking people, "Do you consider yourself a gamer or not," and then I would test them.

So this electrode is going to be measuring your brain waves, so I'm going to put one electrode on your forehead and one electrode on your ear.

Dea: It was the same game on the same device for every person.

Alan was actually pretty stable through the whole thing, I guess, because of his familiarity with the game. Diana -- this is her practice -- when she started hitting, her stress level would start to go down.

Dea: I gave my presentation at the science fair, and I thought because I didn't have a solid conclusion, it wasn't a valid experiment. It turns out, I guess it was. I got first place in the category that I was placed in.

Exercise can actually reduce stress.

Right.

How could that work?

Well, that's something I still want to test because I still think that athletes will have a lower stress level just because they have an output for that stress.

Dea: They come to parent conferences all the time. They take my grades very seriously. They were like, "You're very smart. You just underestimate yourself."

See, it won't hit it. It doesn't reach. Something's wrong with the arm.

Dea: I guess they think I'm a good student.

Narrator: For more information about what works in education, go to Edutopia.org.

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