The goal of the Science Education and Drug Abuse Partnership Award program (SEDAPA) at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is to """"""""...support the development of model programs and materials that engage working scientists in enhancing public understanding of research related to drug abuse and encourage young people to enter careers in science, particularly drug abuse research"""""""" (NIDA 1993). SEDAPA directly supports NIDA's mission of improving drug abuse and addiction prevention, treatment and policy (NIDA 1998) and places the institute in a central role of educating youth about the risks and effects of using addictive substances. The Center for Image Processing in Education (CIPE) proposes to add to NIDA's offerings Visualizing Addiction, a set of supplementary instructional materials for science education in grades nine through twelve. Visualizing Addiction will involve students in active learning about neuroimaging science. This branch of addiction research is revolutionizing how scientists, medical practitioners, and social services professionals view addiction. Working in research teams, the students will simulate and replicate neuroimaging research conducted by NIDA-supported scientists. Because the students will be working with images derived from actual research subjects, the impact of the curriculum will be immediate and concrete. Visualizing Addiction will provide students with a way to renew their relationship with science, improve their science and technology literacy, alter their perceptions of drug use and abuse, and imagine themselves in careers as drug abuse researchers. The materials will be packaged in a notebook of ten lessons ready to implement in the classroom. A modular format will be developed so that the lessons may be used in a traditional biology class, a senior biology research class, or by health educators who wish to add neuroimaging science content to their curricular format. The lessons will be correlated with relevant education standards. A CD-ROM of digital images and software needed for the lessons will be included with each notebook CIPE's established dissemination system will provide nation-wide distribution of the materials via the Internet, national conferences, and telephone orders. Educators will be supported in the implementation of Visualizing Addiction by professional development workshops held at national meetings of science educators and at regional workshop sites. A comprehensive evaluation program will identify student outcomes gained from use of Visualizing Addiction in the classroom.
