TeenSpace wins Rep. Mike Levin’s 2022 Congressional App Challenge in California’s 49th District

When asked what inspired the creation of TeenSpace, the student said, ”In March 2022, my school grappled with two bomb threats in one week. It was frightening and confusing, since we’d never heard of a school getting a bomb threat before and never reviewed what to do if we got one. This apprehension and confusion was only worsened after our school received a shooter threat just two days after the Uvalde school shooting. Everyone panicked, since once again, we had never been taught what to do in case of a shooting threat. Had we been taught what to do in these situations, we could have been more prepared and think more calmly should anything have happened. Wanting to take action, I got to thinking what the best way would be for everyone to effectively learn how to stay safe in a shooting. I initially thought of learning through a school assembly, but given the fact that every teenager at my school ignored any information told in assemblies, it was clear to me that school assemblies were not the best solution. However, my peers were usually engaged during class when we learned information by playing trivia games like Quizziz or Kahoot! or whatever game the teacher made up. It seemed like the best way to push out information to teenagers was trivia games. As I worked on the app, I realized that there was more safety information that teenagers needed to know other than gun safety: all the information covered in the assemblies that teenagers had ignored, including cybersafety, drug safety, driving safety, and dating safety. I included all of these categories in my app, along with gun safety, and researched and produced questions to help teenagers gain understanding on how to stay safe.”