The past few years have seen an upsurge in film or visual-media counterparts to popular childhood book series. Junior Stella Su remembers watching several older adaptations of her favorite childhood books — including “Harry Potter,” “The Giver” and “James and the Giant Peach” — and thinks adaptations may be going downhill.

Composition and Literature of Visual Media teacher Justin Brown said that the rubric for a good adaptation has many dimensions. In his experience, the best and most satisfying adaptations stay true to the original novel: capturing the theme, understanding the characters and imitating the writer’s style.

“In a movie, you need to have conflict in every single moment — otherwise, the audience gets bored,” Brown said. “There needs to be something at stake every moment. And a part of what’s wonderful about books is they just provide a texture to the characters in a way that films can rarely do now.”

Another problem, Brown notes, is that many directors struggle to compress the full depth of a novel into one movie. This notion is shifting, however, as many adaptations such as “Percy Jackson” move away from the movie format and into a multi-episode show.

“Now, so much mainstream entertainment is about serialized streaming stories where they’re going to spend six seasons adapting a book,” Brown said. “Those are situations where you can really do justice to it.”

Su agrees that attempting to cram a large amount of content into a film can ruin the pacing but also notices how adaptations of shorter books, such as “The Giver,” tend to stretch out unnecessary scenes and include their own details.

Freshman Ofer Kranz, who has read the “Percy Jackson” book series and watched both the movie and recent show adaptations, also appreciates the benefits of a series. She recalls the anticipation she and other fans felt waiting for the first episode to air.

“I forced my parents to watch it,” Kranz said. “It was good, really good. And I thought, ‘Finally, it’s here. Finally, we can breathe.’” Though there were a few disappointments with pacing and altered scenes, Kranz recognizes that there is no perfect adaptation and recommends the “Percy Jackson and the Olympians” show for its stronger fidelity to the book series than its movie counterparts.

“They looked at more independent details that weren’t really portrayed in movies,” Kranz said. “They did a really good job with the characters and other details so I definitely prefer the series to the movies, but the books will always be on top.”

With these recent adaptations, Su also hopes to see tributes to smaller book series, and underappreciated or newer novels.

“It’s kind of a shame that (companies) usually only adapt books when they get really popular because a lot of times they try to bank on the already existing popularity,” Su said. “And so obviously some good books don’t get adapted.”

This longstanding relationship has fostered educational and cultural exchanges. Stanford professors pilot curricula in PAUSD schools, PAUSD students attend Stanford summer programs and many Stanford faculty members double as PAUSD parents.

According to Social Studies Instructional Lead Jeff Patrick, however, Stanford’s influence is strongest in the realm of teacher education. Many PAUSD teachers are trained through Stanford’s 12-month, full-time Stanford Teacher Education Program.

“The program exposes them to some of the resources that Stanford has, as well as some other approaches to teaching,” Patrick said.

Gunn departments also draw on Stanford’s resources for lesson plans. Originally founded at Stanford, the Digital Inquiry Group — previously known as the Stanford History Education Group — provides supplemental lesson plans for Gunn social studies classes. YouCubed, an organization founded by Stanford’s Dr. Jo Boaler, provides the curriculum for Gunn’s Introduction to Data Science course.

According to Gunn alumna and current Stanford freshman Olivia Pham, Stanford’s and Gunn’s educational approaches share striking similarities beyond curricula.

“There’s a strong emphasis on not just understanding concepts, but being able to apply them in slightly different ways you’ve never seen before,” she said. “While friends here have told me that math here at Stanford is much more rigorous than at their a pretty smooth transition between Gunn and Stanford.”

In that way, Stanford influences Palo Alto’s culture of — and value for — educational excellence. Gunn alumnus and current Stanford freshman Jules Lustig noted that Gunn and Stanford have the same “grind culture”: an atmosphere of constant drive, strict discipline and high standards.

During Gunn alumnus and current Stanford sophomore Alex Gu’s time with Gunn Math Circle, he took part in the Stanford Math Tournament, a nationwide high-school competition hosted by the Stanford University Math Organization. Student involvement extends beyond STEM, however: Current Gunn sophomore Emerson Chang took part in the Stanford Humanities Circle and found herself interested by the discussion-based, grade-free nature of the program.

“Stanford provides Gunn students with many educational opportunities outside of high school, which allows them to explore their personal interests in unique ways,” Chang said.

Gunn alumnus and current Stanford freshman Jude Hardan hopes for further cooperation between Gunn and Stanford.

“Having such a prestigious academic institution close to Gunn and not using it for collaborations to enhance the educational experience is not the best use of resources for students,” he said.

Lustig echoed this sentiment, adding that he’d like to see a Stanford-Gunn course centered around eliminating students’ fear of failure and instead inculcating love for a subject or field.

“It would be really cool to facilitate some sort of program out of class,” Lustig said. “Something that involves getting away from the numerical grade that is not a measure of intelligence and not a measure of how successful you are in any way.”