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HEALTH EDUCATION

Goal: Developed to motivate and assist students’ commitment to life-long health through classroom instruction that addresses the multi-dimensions of health.

“For every dollar spent on high-quality, multicomponent health education delivered in the school, society saves more than $13 in direct cost, such as medical treatment, addition counseling, alcohol-related motor vehicle injuries and drug related crime, and indirect cost, such as lost productivity due to premature death and expenditures associated with teen pregnancy (CDC, unpublished manuscript, 1997)”

The curriculum is, sequential, K-12 and addresses the physical, mental, emotional and social dimensions of health. The curriculum design assist to motivate students to maintain and improve their health, prevent disease, and reduce health-related risk behaviors. It allows students to develop and demonstrate increasingly sophisticated health-related knowledge, attitudes, skills, and practices. The Healthful Living Standard Course of Study (www.ncpublicschools.org/curriculum/health) includes a variety of topics such as personal health, family health, community health, consumer health, environmental health, sexuality education, mental and emotional health, injury prevention and safety, nutrition, prevention and control of disease, and substance use and abuse. The Healthful Living Education program promotes behaviors that contribute to a healthful lifestyle and improved quality of life for all students. The Healthful Living Education Standard Course of Study, when fully integrated, supports and reinforces the goals and objectives of its two major components health and physical education. When the concepts of these two areas are integrated, learning is enhanced to its maximum.

Resources

North Carolina Comprehensive School Health Training Center (www.appstate.edu/www_docs/depart/ncshtc/index.html)The School Health Training Center offers training for teachers and other school personnel in the skills-based North Carolina Framework for Healthful Living Education. The School Health Training Center activities is funded in part by North Carolina Healthy Schools through a cooperative agreement with the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

Successfully Teaching Middle School Health (www.learnnc.org/dpi)The new and improved Manual is packed with exciting teaching ideas and student activities. The Manual contains six step lesson plans for each 6th, 7th, and 8th grade health objective in the North Carolina Standard Course of Study for Healthful Living Education. A new chapter on health related fitness has been added along with engaging student handouts, and black line masters. A CD is packaged with the Manual which allows teachers the flexibility to personalize the lessons, adapt lessons to meet individual classroom needs, and update statistics and materials as needed. Interactive games and creative PowerPoint presentations are also available on the CD which will enhance instruction and student learning.

NC Institute of Medicine’s Comprehensive Child Health Plan
Improving school health education is one of the top priorities established in the Comprehensive Child Health Plan. Comprehensive Child Health Plan: 2000-2005. Task Force Report to the North Carolina Department and Human Services. Executive Summary. May 2000. Download pdf version. Download Executive Summary. Chartered in 1983 by the North Carolina General Assembly, the North Carolina Institute of Medicine (NC•IOM) is an independent, nonprofit organization that serves as a non-political source of analysis and advice on issues of relevance to the health of North Carolina’s population.

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