Deepthi Chandra couldn’t help but notice many of the students in her advanced placement environmental science class at North Creek High School were struggling with the course work. Dense textbooks and long and arguably boring online videos often made it difficult for students to understand and connect with the content.

Chandra, a junior, wanted to do something to help the students in her class. Instead of offering traditional after-school tutoring to some students, Chandra took it a step further. Chandra founded Eclipsnotes, an online platform that features short videos made by students for students.

“The topics for videos can range from AP classes and languages to art and food,” Chandra said. “It’s like Khan Academy plus videos….I just really wanted to find a way to help my friends better understand our classes.”

The education and media nonprofit’s mission is to create a community of teenagers teaching about their passions through interviews, videos and podcasts.

“In our busy digital age, the passions and insights on humanity each unique human being can bring forth are often overshadowed, so we strive to help individuals find and showcase their talents on a digital media-sharing platform with no hate. No likes. No views. Just bonding.” she said.

Haze Lee, a senior, helped Chandra organize and launch Eclipsnotes.

“It’s really a blank canvas to do anything,” she said. “It’s really helped a lot of people and I hope it can grow and reach more people.”

Launched almost two years ago, Eclipsnotes has taught more than 2,900 lessons.

“Any young person can post a video on our platform. It’s one thing to see an adult doing calculus problems; it’s another to see a fellow teenager having fun teaching math,” Chandra said. “We have courses on a variety of subjects both academic and social, including the following: AP classes, languages, business, social justice, community involvement, art and STEM.”

Chandra said she started by reaching out to people she admired and asked them to make a video. From there, she said, it just grew and grew.

“We are able to focus and highlight things you can’t really find anywhere else,” she said.

Now, Chandra and her team are working toward taking Eclipsnotes further. Through local partnerships, youth organizations and clubs, Eclipsnotes can serve more students.

“We hope to form strong partnerships and create content for them,” she said.

Also, Eclipsnotes is currently taking its effect beyond local students. Chandra and her team formed Notebooks for India. Notebooks for India purchases notebooks and has local elementary and middle school students to decorate the covers. The notebooks are then sent to students in India to help them in school. Chandra recently visited Canyon Creek Middle School and had students decorate the covers of notebooks.

As of now, Chandra and her team are looking to recruit more students, and teachers, to create content for the website.

“It’s a really great opportunity for people to share their passions with others and help them learn and understand things they wouldn’t have before,” Lee said.

To learn more about Eclipsnotes, visit https://eclipsnotes.com.