The primary goal of this grant is to design and develop an innovative music-oriented, interactive, multimedia model for programs to be used in schools and other child-related settings. The programs will demonstrate and promote healthy patterns of living for early school-aged children. The content of the programs includes the seven risk topics identified by the National Cancer Institute: tobacco, alcohol, diet, sun exposure, sexual viruses, estrogens, and environmental exposure. Relevant focus groups will be created and expert consultants enlisted to develop age-appropriate content for this prototype. The experts include professionals in oncology, psychology, child development, health education, music research, and multimedia technology including 'Captain Kangaroo', internationally recognized for his contributions to children's programming. They will integrate information, concepts, values, and skills within each topic. A team of media producers, writers, consultants, physicians, educators, and psychologists will then develop professional scripts for the proposed series. Lastly, through the materials derived from the focus groups the team will ascertain the most appropriate medium(s) for the programs and their commercial distribution such as video, CD-ROM, Internet, and television This model will serve as a prototype for the entire sequential program series in developed in Phase II.
