Hypertension: A Growing Problem (20 Time Project)

20 Time is a concept that is relatively new and has become a very big part of a lot of professional companies, one of the most well-known is Google. This concept of 20 Time, is where employees of a company (in this case students), use 20% of their time to research and produce something, anything, that interests them and that is productive at the same time. In my biology class, we have been assigned to do a 20 Time project, where we have been assigned to research and address a scientific problem that we are interested in. For my project, I have decided to answer the question: What are the causes and effects of high blood pressure, or hypertension, on a normal person? The main reason I decided to take on this challenge is because my dad suffers the problems of high blood pressure, and I wanted to know why this was happening to him and how I could warn others of this ever-growing problem. In order to answer the essential question that I asked, I will be setting up an experiment where I will take different people's blood pressure. My "test subjects" will vary in age, exercise amount, stress level, amount of sleep, etc. and therefore I will be able to pinpoint the main factors that lead people to have the dangerous medical condition of high blood pressure. In addition, this will also tell me how people can avoid having high blood pressure and the problems that come with it. Furthermore, I will be doing some research in class about how blood pressure affects the average person, in order to spread more awareness about high blood pressure. Over the weeks, I will be collecting data, analyzing that data, researching more about the problem of high blood pressure, and overall spreading awareness of this problem.