The planning, writing, editing, finalizing and delivering the lesson that I wrote about Health Literacy underwent a bitter-sweet process. I am grateful that the curriculum was successfully implemented with my 8th grade science classes. I am also grateful that this Health Literacy Curriculum was also part of the Hoke County Schools”first”  Saturday STEM Academy for teachers and students. Although our Kenan Fellowship is about to end, I will still continue to do things the Kenan way. This summer, I am looking forward to implement and share my entire KFP Health Literacy Curriculum to my school district. This curriculum will be part of the two-week Summer STEM Academy Program for students in Hoke County Schools.

This has been an awesome week for my externship at the Southern Regional Area Health Education Center or SR-AHEC. Part of my externship was to shadow the AHEC’s Medical and Pharm D residents.

I had the chance to work with Dr.  Susan Miller who oversees the residents.  With Dr. Miller’s expertise, I had the opportunity to shadow real-world health providers in action inside Cape Fear Valley Hospital. It was so cool and so surreal for me, as a science teacher to sit with the residents during medical “rounds”. It was amazing how the residents work together in analyzing and diagnosing a particular disease or health condition during “rounds”.

This externship provided an excellent idea for me to integrate health literacy in the 8th grade science curriculum. Specifically, this fits the curriculum on analyzing data to determine trends and to determine how infectious disease may spread. I will use this real-world experience to teach and differentiate the curriculum about infectious diseases. I will challenge my students to think like health providers -doctors, nurses and pharm doctors or health consumers- patients. Students will learn about health literacy and apply what they learn about health literacy by becoming an  advocate for health literacy in their community.

Can’t wait for next week…