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Educational Resources

Teacher Workshops
Grade: 4-5
Resource: educator workshops

Museum Exhibits
Grade: 4-5
Resource: exhibits and puppet shows at Hall of Health in downtown Berkley, CA

Using a ball machine that shows how your genes and your lifestyle choices can lead to heart disease.

Assembling a puzzle about the skin color and UV radiation.

Health and Biomedical Science for a Diverse Community (Phase I)

Grant Code: R25RR020449

Funding Years: 09/17/2004 - 07/31/2007

Institution: Children's Hospital and Research Center at Oakland

Department: Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute

Address:
5700 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Oakland, CA, 94609

PI:
LUBIN, BERTRAM H.,
Phone: (510) 450-7601
Fax: (510) 450-7910
Email: blubin@chori.org

OTHER CONTACT:
DAY, LUCILLE L.,
Phone: (510) 549-9381
Fax:
Email: lucyday@hallofhealth.org

URL: http://www.hallofhealth.org/sepa/index.htm

Audience

Ethnically diverse 4th and 5th grade students and their teachers and parents

Subjects Addressed

(1) obesity and nutrition; (2) diabetes and nutrition, digestive system; (3) traumatic brain injuries, nervous system; (4) infectious diseases; (5) environmental toxics and poisoning prevention; (6) asthma, lung disease, respiratory system; (7) genetics and sickle cell anemia; (8) heart disease, circulatory system.

Project Description

A. To increase interest and achievement in biomedical science among 4th and 5th graders from underrepresented minorities; B. To enable 4th and 5th grade under-represented minority students to envision themselves as future healthcare providers and biomedical science researchers; C. To promote family health by providing teachers, students and families with strategies for preventing diseases to which minorities are particularly prone. Approaches include: (1) Development of a health and biomedical science curriculum for 4th and 5th grade: eight five-lesson instructional units, four units for 4th grade and four for 5th. Students learn scientific concepts and practice investigative skills while studying diseases and health conditions that predominantly affect minorities. (2) Workshops for teachers at the Hall of Health Museum, CHORI, and school sites to familiarize teachers with the curriculum, introduce them to cutting-edge biomedical research, and help them to incorporate biomedical science across the curriculum. (3) Family Science Nights and Science Festivals to increase families- knowledge of health conditions and biomedical science, and to enable students and parents to learn together. (4) Providing students with high school, college, and professional role models from diverse ethnic groups. (5) Interactive exhibit on social and genetic factors in health.

Resources for Sharing

1. Lesson plans for eight instructional units for 4th and 5th grade (topics listed above). 2. Evaluation tools.

Dissemination Strategies

1. Posting lessons on the Internet (expected completion by June 2007). 2. Now writing Phase II SEPA proposal to provide for production of curriculum kits for dissemination to all of the elementary schools in the Oakland Unified School District, California, and training parents and teachers to use them. 3. Phase II SEPA proposal to include workshops for teachers and parents from other districts. 4. Phase II SEPA proposal to include traveling version of exhibit.

Abstract

Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI), in collaboration with the Hall of Health, a hands-on health museum, proposes a three-year Phase I SEPA project entitled "Health and Biomedical Science for a Diverse Community." The project entails development of a novel, interactive biomedical science curriculum for 4th and 5th grade students in low socioeconomic environments. Complementary to the curriculum, a hands-on exhibit on social and genetic factors in health will be developed to enhance learning by students and families. The curriculum and exhibit will be pilot tested with students from two elementary schools in Oakland, California. The curriculum--which will specifically address minority health issues such as asthma, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease--will include four five-lesson instructional units for 4th grade, and four five-lesson instructional units for 5th grade. In addition to classroom activities, the project will include workshops for teachers, family health and biomedical science nights, field trips to the Hall of Health, and an annual health and biomedical science festival for families. The project will involve clinical as well as basic science investigators, patients and families, and high school and college students. It will draw on the talents of teachers and health educators from the Oakland Unified School District, directors of SEPA projects at the Exploratorium in San Francisco and Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, faculty at San Francisco State University and the University of California at Berkeley, and employees of LeapFrog, Inc., a company located in Emeryville, California, that makes interactive educational products. The ultimate goals of the project are to make science interesting and relevant to children who come from ethnically diverse, low socio-economic environments, to help them and their parents understand the relationship between science and health, and to foster their interest in science so that they may consder future opportunities in careers related to biomedical science. All project activities will undergo front-end, formative, and summative evaluation.

Keywords

curriculum, education evaluation /planning, educational resource design /development, elementary school, health education, science education, low socioeconomic status, racial /ethnic difference, teaching, workshop clinical research, human subject