The relationship between workspace and success.

Here’s a study tip few people know. Take ownership of your study space and you’ll do better in school. Skye, a high school student, is determined to bring this helpful information to students everywhere.

To do that, Skye started Own Your Space, an initiative with the goal of empowering students to improve their academic performance by paying attention to their workspace.

Working with animator Paulo Reis, she wrote and narrated one-minute videos that clearly explain how and why students should optimize their study space. In the videos, Skye shares the message that a clean and calm work environment improves concentration, encourages focus, and may improve grades as well.

While billions of dollars are spent annually to help students’ performance, Skye’s simple videos help with fundamental first steps that are too often overlooked.

Each video presents one of the three guiding principles behind student success; good lighting, decluttering, and adding specific colors for optimum performance. Skye explains that “The three minutes it takes to watch all of the videos can save students hours of study time and improve comprehension which should lead directly to better grades.”

Skye spent her sophomore year sifting through research that supports the relationship between environment and achievement. “Most of the research is classroom-oriented and written in a scientific way that is not always easy to comprehend,” explains Skye.

Skye intuitively understood that students, beginning in middle school, needed this information provided to them in a way that was easy to digest. “As a visual learner, I thought students would appreciate the information in video format. It shouldn’t take studying research to learn how to study better.” According to Skye, "Own Your Space is all about student empowerment. The less we stress over studying, the better we do as students.”