This proposal requests support for the development of the Online Health Education Curriculum Resource Center to provide teachers with access to high quality health education curricula and lesson plans in order to improve health instruction and information dissemination to America's school children. This project will provide a unique information resource to directly respond to the need to increase health education in the nation's schools.
The specific aims of the project are to: 1. Develop a web based software system to support an easily accessible health education curriculum resource center; 2. Identify and evaluate high quality, publicly available, online health education curricula and lesson plans related to three critical health behaviors responsible for adult disease: lack of physical activity, poor nutrition, and tobacco use; 3. Catalog high quality online health education curricula and lesson plans and make them easily accessible to elementary, middle, and high school teachers; 4. Provide a forum for educators who utilize the resource center to evaluate the site, add comments about individual curricula and lesson plans, and discuss innovative approaches in health education; 5. Pilot test the resource center with a cohort of elementary, middle and high school teachers in order to evaluate utility, ease of access, and effectiveness. This project will be performed at The New York Academy of Medicine, an independent, non-profit institution, committed since 1847 to enhancing the health of the public through research, education, and advocacy. The Division of Information management of the Academy is responsible for developing innovative strategies to disseminate health information to professionals and the public. It has been the site of the Regional Medical Library of the National Library of Medicine for over thirty years. The Office of School Health Programs of the Academy has supported the health education needs of New York City teachers and schools for over twenty years through intensive health education workshops, curricular development, and technical assistance. These groups will collaborate as a direct extension of the goal of the Academy to bring health information to the public, increasingly through computer technology. The project will be accomplished with the assistance of an Expert Advisory Committee to provide guidance and consultation and to help set the criteria for evaluation of curricula and lesson plans. Additional outside reviewers with expertise in health education, curriculum development, and classroom teaching will be utilized to provide a structured evaluation of curricula and lesson plans. The utility, ease of access and effectiveness of the resource center will be evaluated by a cohort of elementary, middle school and high school teachers. A plan for the long-term development and sustainability of the resource center will be developed as part of the project.
