The Watershed Happiness Report
Inspired by her research at the Fulbright-Hays Seminar in Finland, Watershed educator Amy Robbins, Ph.D. created the 8th grade Project Happiness Expedition course. In collaboration with co-educator Locke Hassett, the course explored how to measure happiness through weekly themes such as nature, play, and sustainability. The course culminated in students developing their own happiness survey, modeled after the World Happiness Report, released every year by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford.
Read the 8th graders’ full report here!
To assist them with their surveys, students collaborated with experts like Shay Castle and Drs. Roselinde Kaiser and Alicia Sepulveda from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Healthy Mind and Mood to explore more deeply how biology, beliefs, self-perception, relationships, emotions, and resilience influence happiness.
They then refined their survey and gathered data from Watershed students and staff, analyzing it using social science methods. The final research report was shared with the Watershed community.
Amy presented the project at the Fulbright Symposium in Washington, D.C., and plans to expand Project Happiness internationally, potentially connecting with Fulbright partners in Finland and Morocco. She sees the project as a valuable opportunity for middle school students to explore happiness both locally and globally.
“Not only did I learn a lot about how to make and interpret information from surveys, I also learned a lot about what seems to make people happy here at Watershed and around the world. This experience made me realize that being in nature and finding ways to give back to people makes me happy. It made me realize that when I’m not feeling happy, I can do things, take action, to change that.”
– Harry, 8th grade
“Project Happiness was a blast! We had lots of opportunities for learning through doing, and I especially loved hearing students reflect on how they can support their own happiness and the happiness of those around them. I’d love to build in an aspect of international collaboration in future years, hopefully with Fulbright connections in Finland and Morocco. This is important work for middle school students to be doing here in Boulder and around the world.”
