Research & Projects
My name is Jóhanna Birna Bjartmarsdóttir. I'm an Icelandic student who is majoring in Education Science, minoring in Health Promotion, and dual specializing in Educational Psychology and Research, and Educational Technology at the University of Florida to become a curriculum developer and instructional designer.
Moreover, I'm the founder and owner of HARTS, which stands for Health, Access, Research, Technology, and Schools. The company works to promote these factors in Iceland and is currently working towards designing the first world-class online course in the Icelandic higher education system and creating a comprehensive health literacy curriculum for K-12 that enables students to make informed decisions, lead healthy lives, and overcome adversities. I'm also the host of the podcast My Atypical Life.
The health literacy curriculum that I aim to create would be a comprehensive curriculum that teaches students about nutrition, mental and physical health promotion, CPR training, coping strategies, and communication. I’m currently conducting a scoping review of mental health literacy curricula in K-12 education as my university scholars project at UF. In the future I will be conducting similar reviews of the other aspects in the health literacy curriculum, before finally doing a complete review of health literacy curricula in K-12 education.
My high honors project at UF will be creating the first world-class online course at a university in Iceland to promote accessibility to higher education for all students, but especially those who have been underrepresented in the academic community, such as students with learning disabilities.
Furthermore, I plan to be the role model I never had for students with dyslexia, ADHD, or autism and to be a visible representation for students like me by showing that individuals with learning disabilities do belong and can excel in higher academia. Not only do I want to be a role model for these kids, but I want to help implement more inclusive environments and tools for these students into the Icelandic, and hopefully the universal, education system.
University Scholars Program
I am conducting a scoping review of Culturally Competent and Equitable School-Based Universal Mental Health Literacy Curricula for K-12 Education with an amazing research team as my university scholars project. I'm so honored to be able to work with the amazing women on my team and learn so much from them every time we meet, and I am so excited to do this project with them. The team consists of Dr. Ragnhildur Bjarnadottir, an assistant professor in nursing at UF (who is actually my mom's old student from Iceland), Dr. Bergljót Gyða Guðmundsdóttir, an associate professor in education at the University of Iceland (whom I met when I was doing a presentation at the Ministry of Children and Education in Iceland), and Brittany Kester, and amazing education librarian at UF that I have been meeting with on zoom to learn about research since spring 2022. As this is my passion, I spend a lot of time on this project, but at minimum, I would say I dedicate at least 10 hours a week towards this assignment. I always have two 1.5-hour meetings on Tuesdays with Brittany and Gyða, and then I write the protocol, do the abstract reviews, create the data collection template, and manage the team meetings and schedules. But I will be able to dedicate a lot more time to the project this summer, that I could not be more excited about.