School-Based Health Education
Standards:
Essential Health Concepts (E.C.)
Analyze Health Influences (I.N.F.)
California Healthy Kids Resource Center
(C.H.K.R.C.)
Hello, and welcome to the School-Based Health Education Standards: Essential
Health Concepts and Analyze Health Influences training. This is the second module
in the school-based health education standards training series. The first module,
School-Based Health Education: Standards and Instruction for Real-Life Healthy
Behaviors, provided an introduction to the California Health Education Content
Standards. This module will provide information about the first two overarching
health education standards. This training will take approximately 30 minutes to
complete. Let’s get started!
1
Training Objectives
You will be able to:
1) Describe the Essential Health Concepts standard,
with student examples.
2) Describe the Analyzing Health Influences standard,
with student examples.
3) Describe an example of a grade-level standard.
4) Describe an example of an instructional strategy
that facilitates the transfer of health skills to real life.
5) Access resources for teaching students health
skills.
Let’s review the objectives for this training. By the end of this training, you will be
able to:
1) Describe the Essential Health Concepts standard, with student examples.
2) Describe the Analyzing Health Influences standard, with student examples.
3) Describe an example of a grade-level standard.
4) Describe an example of an instructional strategy that facilitates the transfer
of health skills to real life.
5) Access resources for teaching students health skills.
2
Review: Components of
School-Based Health Education
Overarching Standards
Grade‐Level Standards
Health Instruction
Health Content Areas
Before we discuss Essential Health Concepts and Analyzing Health Influences in
more detail, let’s review the purpose and components of school-based health
education. The ultimate purpose of school-based health education is to help
students develop and practice skills they can transfer to real-life behavior. There are
four components that combine to make this happen. First, the overarching
standards and health content areas come together to create grade-level standards.
Next, health instruction guides the development of skills to achieve grade-level
standards, which transfer to real-life behavior.
3
Overarching Standards
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
Essential Health Concepts
Analyzing Health Influences
Accessing Valid Health Information
Interpersonal Communication
Decision Making
Goal Setting
Practicing Health-Enhancing Behaviors
Health Promotion
As you remember from the previous module, the overarching standards describe
essential concepts and broad skill sets related to health. Select the handout link to
print a summary sheet of the California Health Education Content Standards now,
or access it in the resources section at the end of this module. There are eight
overarching standards:
1) Essential Health Concepts
2) Analyzing Health Influences
3) Accessing Valid Health Information
4) Interpersonal Communication
5) Decision Making
6) Goal Setting
7) Practicing Health-Enhancing Behaviors
8) Health Promotion
This module focuses on the first two overarching standards: Essential Health
Concepts and Analyzing Health Influences. For these two standards, we will identify
the desired student skill set, apply it to a health content area, and examine
instructional strategies to teach students behaviors to transfer to real life.
4
A Closer Look: Essential
Health Concepts
Standard: All students will comprehend
essential concepts related to enhancing
health.
Let’s start with Essential Health Concepts. This overarching standard specifies that
all students will comprehend essential concepts related to enhancing health. When
students learn essential health concepts, it improves their ability to describe
relationships among concepts and to draw conclusions that are health promoting.
This understanding of health concepts informs health decisions and supports the
selection of appropriate health products and services. For example, students would
need to comprehend the different choices in sun screen to choose the appropriate
sun screen.
5
Rationale: Essential
Health Concepts
Rationale: Understanding essential
concepts about the relationships
between behavior and health provides
the foundation for making informed
decisions about health-related behaviors
and for selecting appropriate health
products and services.
Understanding essential concepts about the relationships between behavior and
health provides the foundation for making informed decisions about health-related
behaviors and for selecting appropriate health products and services.
6
Student Examples: Essential
Health Concepts
• Know the parts of the body
and their functions.
• Apply effective dental and
personal hygiene practices.
• Comprehend the differences
between medicines and
illicit drugs.
To better understand the Essential Health Concepts standard, let’s look at some
examples of students in real-life settings.
Examples of students understanding essential health concepts include knowing the
parts of the body and their functions, applying effective dental and personal hygiene
practices, and comprehending the differences between medicines and illicit drugs.
The important thing to remember is that understanding essential health concepts in
real life helps students’ sense of knowledge about health. This makes it possible for
them to make informed decisions related to health and safety. Now that we have
taken a closer look at the standard: Essential Health Concepts, with student
examples, let’s look at what it means to teach to this standard.
7
Teaching to the Standards
What does it mean to teach to the standards? Teaching to the standards means we
begin by describing the outcome—that is, the real-life behaviors we want students
to achieve. Second, we determine what standards represent the desired student
outcomes. And third, we select health instruction that will best help students learn
the skills to achieve the grade-level standard and transfer to real-life behavior.
8
Detail: Teaching to the Standards
Health Education
1st
Overarching Standard
2nd
Example: Essential Concepts Grade‐Level Standard
Health Content Area
Example:
Identify ways to reduce pollution and harmful health effects
Example:
Personal and Community Health
3rd
Health Instruction
Example:
Designed after determining desired student outcomes and relevant standards
Teaching to the standards is also called teaching with the end in mind, or backward
design, because we first start by describing the outcome, which is the real-life
behaviors we want students to achieve. For example, we might desire that students
reuse waste products or recycle. With the end, the student outcomes, in mind, we
then work backward and determine what standards represent the desired student
outcomes. In this example, an overarching standard for grades nine to twelve in the
health content area of Personal and Community Health includes the following
standard: identify ways to reduce pollution and harmful health effects. To teach to
the standards or teach with the end in mind using backward design, we select
health instruction that will best help students learn the skills to achieve the gradelevel standard and transfer to real-life behavior.
9
Steps for Teaching to Standards
Step 1: Assess students’ learning needs
Step 2: Determine standards
Step 3: Align instruction to standards
Step 4: Monitor students’ learning
Step 5: Support transfer to real life
Here you can see the five steps for teaching to standards. Select the handout link to
print the ADAMS handout now to refer to during the module, or access it at the end
of the training in the resources section.
In step 1: assess student learning needs, you identify the desired student behaviors.
Usually these will be the healthy behaviors and habits you would like students to
develop and use in real-life settings.
In step 2: determine standards, you identify the grade-level standards that represent
the knowledge and skills students need to learn to carry out the desired real-life
behaviors.
In step 3: align instruction to standards, you design instructional activities that
provide students with opportunities to learn and practice the skills to achieve the
standards.
In step 4: monitor student learning, during and after instruction you check that
students understand the essential concepts and are competent in performing the
skills to achieve the standards. You provide students with varied opportunities to
demonstrate their learning.
In step 5: support transfer to real life, you help students use learned skills in real life
situations and help them reflect on the effectiveness of their new skills.
The ADAMS sequence outlines the steps involved in teaching to the standards.
10
Using ADAMS to Teach to the
Essential Health Concepts Standard
Overarching Standard:
Essential Health
Concepts
Content Area:
Nutrition and
Physical Activity
• Assess students’
learning needs
• Determine standards
• Align instruction to
standards
• Monitor students’
learning
• Support transfer to
real life
In the next slides we apply the ADAMS steps to teaching to the Essential Health
Concepts standard in the health content area of Nutrition and Physical Activity.
Refer to the ADAMS handout as we apply each of the ADAMS steps to a real-life
student scenario.
11
E.C. Step 1: Assess Students’
Learning Needs
Let’s look at a scenario in which students would need to comprehend essential
health concepts to inform healthy choices. Jessica and Amy are in seventh grade
and have been best friends since kindergarten. They swap music, have lunch
together, and try to watch all television shows and movies that feature their favorite
teenage movie star, Maggie Kohl. In fact, Jessica and Amy idolize Maggie Kohl.
They try to grow long hair like hers, dress like her, and go to the type of places she
likes to go. Right now, Maggie Kohl is doing television commercials for one of the
fast-food chains, and Jessica and Amy try to eat there whenever they can. They
always order the burger and soda Maggie Kohl eats and drinks in the commercials.
They don’t always feel very energetic after eating the fast food, but being like
Maggie Kohl matters a lot to them. If Jessica and Amy continue to east fast food
and drink soda all the time, they will likely develop a number of health problems,
including high blood pressure, heart disease, and weak bones.
12
E.C. Step 2: Determine Standards
In step two of ADAMS, we determine the appropriate grade-level standard to help
guide health instruction for skill development. The overarching standard, Essential
Health Concepts, and the content area, Nutrition and Physical Activity, combine to
create this grade-level standard for students in grades seven and eight: identify the
impact of nutrition on chronic disease.
Now that we have determined an appropriate standard, our next step is to
determine what instructional strategies will best enable students to learn and
demonstrate this standard. We’ll go through one instructional strategy for teaching
Jessica, Amy, and other students this grade-level standard and the skills they need
for real-life healthy decisions.
13
E. C. Step 3: Align Instruction to
Standards
Now it’s time to explore one health-instruction strategy we could use to help
students achieve this grade-level standard. Remember that you do not need to
create your own health-instruction strategies. You can select strategies from highquality resources. Later in this training, you will learn how to access free
instructional resources from the California Healthy Kids Resource Center. The
strategy we will explore is from the curriculum Media-Smart Youth.
The grade-level standard we want to teach Jessica, Amy, and other students is:
identify the impact of nutrition on chronic disease. Media-Smart Youth has an
instructional strategy that can help students achieve the following lesson objective:
to describe at least five ways to use food and physical activity to build strong bones.
Notice that the lesson objective relates to the grade-level standard, and takes it a
step further to include physical activity.
Select the handout link to print the lesson so you can review the learning activities
in the instructional strategy. There are three steps in the instructional strategy:
1) Learn why healthy bones are important.
2) Brainstorm healthy foods and physical activities that improve bone health.
3) Create Top 10 lists for building strong and healthy bones.
14
E.C. Step 4: Monitor Students’
Learning
Why healthy bones are important:
• Preventing osteoporosis, a condition where
bones do not have enough calcium and
other minerals to stay strong.
• Preventing fractures
• Weak bones break more easily.
• Fractures affect students’ ability to fully engage
in many activities.
Notice that all the steps in the instructional strategy focus on understanding
concepts that can help students make informed decisions. Think about Jessica and
Amy. We’ll teach them about real-life health issues, such as a chronic disease like
osteoporosis as well as fractures that can result from weak bones, to help them
understand why healthy bones are important. If we only told them to eat calciumrich foods and do weight-bearing activities without brainstorming real-life examples,
they would have trouble understanding what this meant and how to include these
foods and activities in their lives. As we go through the next two parts of the
instructional strategy, keep in the mind that these activities are part of a larger
lesson in a sequential curriculum. Therefore, students would have already been
introduced to information about nutrition, physical activity, and health.
15
E.C. Step 4: Monitor Students’
Learning Continued
How to improve bone health:
• Do weight-bearing physical activities
• Any activity in which your body weight works
against gravity
• Feet, legs, or arms carry most of your weight
• Eat healthy, calcium-rich foods
•
•
•
•
•
Low- and non-fat dairy products
Dark, leafy greens
Beans
Almonds
Canned salmon
Now that students like Jessica and Amy understand why healthy bones are
important, the next activity in the instructional strategy taken from Media-Smart
Youth is to brainstorm healthy foods and physical activities that improve bone
health. Prompted by the instruction that weight-bearing physical activities are those
in which your body works against gravity and that this happens when your feet, legs,
or arms are carrying most of your weight, ask the students to name some weightbearing physical activities and write their ideas on large paper. Students will come
up with good ideas, but may need to be guided to responses such as jumping rope,
climbing stairs, raking leaves, and carrying groceries.
To check their knowledge, the Media-Smart Youth lesson suggests that you ask
students to name at least two physical activities that are not weight bearing, such as
swimming, biking, and horseback riding. After congratulating the students on their
wonderful ideas, you can move on to explain that another way to keep bones strong
is to get enough calcium, which is found in foods and drinks, especially milk and
milk products, as well as non-dairy sources like dark-green leafy vegetables, cooked
dried beans, almonds, and canned salmon with bones.
16
E.C. Step 5: Support Transfer to
Real Life
In the Top 10 list activity, students create a list
of things they can do every day to build strong
and healthy bones.
•
•
•
•
•
•
Select note takers, encouragers, and presenters.
Give groups five minutes to create their lists.
Ask each group to present its list.
Congratulate students for their good ideas.
Ask which ideas surprised them.
Ask which ideas they would like to incorporate
into their daily lives.
Now that students have learned why healthy bones are important and brainstormed
healthy foods and physical activities that improve bone health, it’s time for the final
instructional strategy that will help them transfer the concepts to real life: create Top
10 lists for building strong and healthy bones. This activity is an adaptation from a
lesson on creating top 10 lists about physical activity from Media-Smart Youth. Ask
the students to work in teams to create a list of 10 activities that build strong and
healthy bones. The list should include any physical activity that gets your body
moving in weight-bearing ways, but not include traditional sports or exercise, such
as basketball or weightlifting. The list should also include foods that are high in
calcium.
The groups select note takers to write the group’s ideas on large paper,
encouragers to cheer on the group and urge it to finish the activity in the time
available, and presenters to read the list when the group is done. Allow the groups
five minutes to create their lists, and then ask each group to present its list to the
larger group. After the groups have presented, congratulate the students for having
such creative and clever ideas. To support the students in transferring the learning
of the standard into their real lives, ask them which activities or foods on the list
were surprising. Perhaps they had not previously thought of certain activities as
weight-bearing physical activities. Maybe they had not previously considered eating
certain foods on a regular basis. Then ask which things on the lists they would like
to incorporate into their daily lives.
17
E.C. Step 5: Support Transfer to
Real Life Continued
If the Media-Smart Youth lessons are taught as suggested, Jessica, Amy, and other
students would likely learn the skills needed to describe at least five ways to use
food and physical activity to build strong bones. Remember that the purpose of
teaching to the health standards is for students to learn the skills for real-life
behavior. Jessica and Amy are at risk for all sorts of health problems, including
weak bones, by eating burgers and drinking sodas at the fast-food restaurant as
often as they can. Based on the information they learned in the lesson, they could
replace the burgers and soda that so often left them feeling low energy with
calcium-rich foods like broccoli dipped in hummus, which is made from garbanzo
beans, and yogurt. Having brainstormed weight-bearing physical activities that are
fun and easy for them to do, they may also be more likely to dance and practice
their cartwheels and handstands instead of sitting and watching Maggie Kohl’s
television shows.
18
Another Look: Overarching Standards
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
Essential Health Concepts
Analyzing Health Influences
Accessing Valid Health Information
Interpersonal Communication
Decision Making
Goal Setting
Practicing Health-Enhancing Behaviors
Health Promotion
As you remember, the overarching standards describe essential concepts and
broad skill sets related to health. There are eight overarching standards.
19
A Closer Look: Analyzing
Health Influences
Standard: All students will demonstrate
the ability to analyze internal and
external influences that affect health.
This Analyzing Health Influences standard, or broad skill set, is: all students will
demonstrate the ability to analyze internal and external influences that affect health.
When students learn how to analyze health influences, they are better able to make
thoughtful decisions about how to live healthy lives.
20
Rationale: Analyzing Health
Influences
Rationale: Health choices are affected by
a variety of influences. The ability to
recognize, analyze, and evaluate internal
and external influences is essential to
protecting and enhancing health.
Health choices are affected by a variety of influences. The ability to recognize,
analyze, and evaluate internal and external influences is essential to protecting and
enhancing health.
21
Student Examples: Analyzing
Health Influences
• Analyze behaviors that
may lead to injuries.
• Analyze how family and
cultural influence affect
food choices.
• Analyze the internal and
external factors that
influence mental,
emotional, and social
health.
To better understand the Analyzing Health Influences standard, let’s look at some
examples of students analyzing health influences in real-life settings.
Examples of students analyzing health influences include analyzing behaviors that
may lead to injuries, analyzing how family and cultural influences affect food
choices, and analyzing the internal and external factors that influence mental,
emotional, and social health.
22
Using ADAMS to Teach to the Analyzing
Health Influences Standard
Overarching Standard:
Analyzing Health
Influences
Content Area:
Nutrition and
Physical Activity
• Assess students’
learning needs
• Determine standards
• Align instruction to
standards
• Monitor students’
learning
• Support transfer to
real life
In the next slides we apply the ADAMS steps to teaching to the Analyzing Health
Influences standard in the health content area of Nutrition and Physical Activity.
Refer to the ADAMS handout as we apply each of the ADAMS steps to a real-life
student scenario.
23
I.N.F. Step 1: Assess Students’
Learning Needs
Remember Jessica and Amy? They now have knowledge and skills to describe how
to use food and physical activity to build strong bones, but what about the incredible
influence that Maggie Kohl’s fast-food restaurant television commercials have on
them? They need to get some media literacy skills under their belts in order to be
able to choose healthier food. Let’s help Jessica and Amy learn how to analyze how
those commercials influence their behaviors. Go to the next slide when you are
ready to go on to step two in ADAMS: determining grade-level standards to achieve
real-life behavior.
24
I.N.F. Step 2: Determine Standards
In step two of ADAMS, we determine the appropriate grade-level standard to help
guide health instruction for skill development. The overarching standard, Analyzing
Health Influences, and the content area, Nutrition and Physical Activity, combine to
create this grade-level standard for students in grades seven and eight: evaluate
internal and external influences on food choices. Now that we have determined an
appropriate standard, our next step is to determine what instructional strategies will
best enable students to learn and demonstrate this standard.
25
I.N.F. Step 3: Align Instruction to
Standards
Let’s dive into a health-instruction strategy to help students achieve this grade-level
standard. The grade-level standard we want to teach Jessica, Amy, and other
students is: evaluate internal and external influences on food choices. Two lessons
from Media-Smart Youth that we will explore have the following lesson objective: to
analyze media messages and understand how they affect behavior.
Select the handout link to print the lesson so you can review the learning activities
in the instructional strategy. There are three parts to this instructional strategy:
1) Recognize the six media questions.
2) Review a public service announcement or favorite television show.
3) Explain that media messages often promote a specific action.
26
I.N.F. Step 4: Monitor Students’
Learning
In the lesson The 6 Media Questions students:
• Explore what a media message is.
• Learn about six key principles to comprehending
media messages.
• Practice answering The 6 Media Questions to
analyze media examples.
• Analyze a public service announcement or their
favorite television show.
In the lesson The 6 Media Questions students explore what a media message is,
learn about six key principles to comprehending media messages, practice
answering The 6 Media Questions to analyze media examples using the Media
Detective Notepad sheet, and analyze a public service announcement or their
favorite television show.
Jessica and Amy’s analysis of Maggie Kohl’s fast-food restaurant television
commercials would go something like this:
1) Who is the author or sponsor? The fast-food chain.
2) Who is the audience? Youths, specifically girls.
3) What is the purpose? To persuade you to eat at the fast-food restaurant.
4) What is the message? Eat at this restaurant and you will be as cool and
popular as Maggie Kohl.
5) What information is missing? The potential negative health effects over time
of eating hamburgers and drinking soda.
6) What techniques are used to attract your attention? Maggie Kohl’s star power
and influence.
With these new analysis skills, Jessica and Amy can start to comprehend the
influence of the media on their eating habits.
27
I.N.F. Step 4: Monitor Students’
Learning – Your Turn
Identify places during and
after the lesson in which
the teacher can check that
the students know how to
analyze influences and are
competent in performing
the skills to achieve the
standard.
Before you go to the next slide, review the lesson plan to identify places during and
after the lesson in which the teacher can check that the students know how to
analyze influences and are competent in performing the skills to achieve the
standard. What different ways can students demonstrate their learning? When you
have identified several opportunities in the lesson, go on to the next slide.
28
I.N.F. Step 4: Monitor Students’
Learning – How Did You Do?
The teacher has opportunities to
monitor students’ learning of the
standard when students are:
• Defining message in the
context of media products.
• Explaining what each of the six
media questions are asking
them to think about and what
the questions mean to them.
• Analyzing the media examples
by answering the media
questions
• Presenting their media
examples and answers.
There are several times during and after instruction to check students’ knowledge
and skill development, to re-teach, and to offer students opportunities to
demonstrate their achievement of the standard. Did you come up with some of
these ways of checking in on students’ learning?
The teacher has opportunities to monitor students’ learning of the standard when:
•
Students are defining message in the context of media products.
•
Students are explaining what each of the six media questions are asking
them to think about and what the questions mean to them.
•
Students are analyzing the media examples by answering the media
questions.
•
Students are presenting their media examples and answers.
29
I.N.F. Step 5: Support Transfer
to Real Life
In the Media-Smart Youth lesson MiniProduction: And … Action! students
brainstorm and create an action hero for a
new cartoon show who has special powers to
promote a specific healthy action that focuses
on nutrition or physical activity.
Now that students have learned about media messages and have practiced
analyzing media examples and a public service announcement or their favorite
television show, it is time for the final step of this instructional strategy. In the MediaSmart Youth lesson Mini-Production: And … Action! they brainstorm and create an
action hero for a new cartoon show who has special powers to promote a specific
healthy action that focuses on nutrition or physical activity. Students learn that the
purpose of advertising is to persuade an audience to act. They are encouraged to
think about the specific actions their favorite commercials ask them to take. They
learn how people who create advertisements use slogans, which are short, catchy
phrases, to persuade an audience to take an action. And then they work individually
or in pairs to create an action hero using the Action Hero Kit worksheet.
By going through this activity, Jessica and Amy can build their confidence to extend
their media-analysis skills to real-life. They can turn the negative influence of their
favorite television commercial into positive actions.
30
Library slide
The California Healthy Kids Resource Center library:
• Connects library users with reviewed resources for
teaching to the standards.
• Has an online, interactive, searchable catalog at
http://www.californiahealthykids.org.
• Provides resources for four-week loan, with free delivery in
California.
• Provides an opportunity to try out different curricula,
activity sets, and materials.
Remember, you do not need to create your own instructional strategies for teaching
students health skills they can transfer to real life. There are many existing
instructional strategies you can use to teach students the California Health
Education Content Standards beyond the two we reviewed in this training. The
California Healthy Kids Resource Center’s free lending library has many effective,
high-quality, reviewed resources, including Media-Smart Youth. Resources can be
borrowed for free, 4-week loans throughout California. This provides an opportunity
for teachers to try out curricula, activity sets, and other materials. You will be able to
access Media-Smart Youth and other resources in the library after this training.
31
Now You Can:
1) Describe the Essential Health Concepts
standard, with student examples.
2) Describe the Analyzing Health Influences
standard, with student examples.
3) Describe an example of a grade-level
standard.
4) Describe an example of an instructional
strategy that facilitates the transfer of health
skills to real life.
5) Access resources for teaching students health
skills.
You can describe the Essential Health Concepts and Analyzing Health Influences
standards, with student examples. You can describe what it means to teach to the
standards and use ADAMS steps, and you know how to access resources for
teaching students health skills.
32
Closing slide
Congratulations! You have reached the end of this training. You will now have the
opportunity to take a quiz to test the knowledge you have acquired in this training. If
you receive a passing score, a completion certificate will be e-mailed to you at the
e-mail address you provided. If you don’t receive a passing score, you will have the
opportunity to take the test again at any time. Following the quiz, you will be asked
to complete a brief feedback survey. After you complete the survey, you will be able
to access sample California Healthy Kids Resource Center library resources and
additional information about standards-based health education. You may take the
quiz by selecting the link. Thank you for participating in this training.
33