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Miami Palmetto High School senior Abbie Lambert is Student Council President for the 2022-2023 school year. She ran unopposed after being the vice president of the Class of ’23, but she campaigned anyway because she thought it was important that her fellow students get to know her.
It’s unusual to have a Student Council presidential race with only one candidate.
“I think it was partly because of COVID,” she says. “Student Council was not as active the last three years. Hopefully next year there will be more of a competition.”
Lambert recently achieved her Girl Scout Gold Award.
“I started it in 2020 when COVID really hit hard. I worked with Mrs. Farkas, teaching Achieve Miami students how to use their Chrome Books. It grew from there to a program that targeted freshman in high school.”
Lambert says a lot of freshmen are not digitally literate. In fact, few even know about password security and other simple technological necessities.
She taught Achieve Miami students functional things about computers – going as basic as “this is your keyboard” and “this is your school platform.”
“I turned this elementary school program into Project DIGIT which stands for “Digital and Internet Growth In Time,” she says. “We presented it to different classes last year and we plan to present it more classes this year. Alongside Girl Scouts we are trying to adapt it as a community program.”
She worked to get it ready for this fall.
The high school program became a four-session curriculum. It included lateral reading, research efficiency, digital organization, as well as digital safety.
A lot of the students have access to computers at school but not at home.
“We practiced skills like typing and researching,” she says. “We only had the chance to present to regular classes and Advanced Placement. Hopefully this year all the classes will be exposed to this program.”
She also included information about mental health.
“I incorporated a different type of mental health practice. Different students require different coping mechanisms,” she says.
She included information such as how writing things down can help students deal with stress, how journaling can improve mental health, how being aware of screen time can improve cognitive maturity.
She partnered with a teacher to start the program. At the end of sophomore year, she sent out a survey to students in elementary school to high school.
“I received about 500 responses,” she says. “I created a survey that the students took before and after my program, and it showed a measurable increase in knowledge.”
She recruited three sophomores to present with her.
“We used a Health Information Project style of presentation,” she says.
This year she hopes to find three more underclassmen to train.
“We want to present to more classes at school and to the Community Troops for Girl Scouts,” she says.
Along with being in student council, she’s a member of the National Honor Society, the Social Science Honor Society, and Interact.
“I’m president of Tutoring for Tomorrow,” she says.
TFT provides affordable tutoring for grades K-12 and donates half of their proceeds to charity. Lambert has tutored since Sophomore year and hopes to grow the Non-Profit by graduation.
She is the Editor-in-Chief of the yearbook, starting off as Clubs Editor, Events Editor, Real Life Editor and now Editor-in-Chief.
She does not know where she wants to go to college.
“I want a college where I can explore all of my passions,” she says.
She’s interested in science journalism and wants to major in Neurosociology, which combines Neuroscience with human interaction.
Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
