Healthy Lungs: Cancer Education for Middle School Teachers Using a “Train and Equip” Method

Abstract

Prevention of the initiation of tobacco use, which is associated with increased risk of developing cancer of the lung, the oral cavity, larynx, and emphysema, should target middle school-age children because that is where experimentation with tobacco use usually begins. Millions of children attending school do not receive proper education regarding the biological science of the human respiratory system coupled with the impact that tobacco use has at the cell, tissue, and organ levels of biological organization because their teachers are ill-prepared and ill-equipped to teach this normal and cancer-related content. The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences has a statewide outreach program that provides middle school teachers training in a “Healthy Lungs” curriculum that covers the normal functional anatomy of the respiratory system as a basis for adding the effect of tobacco use and its associated cancers and emphysema. This training also provides each participant a resource kit of supplies, materials, and items of equipment. A long-term implementation survey identified a high degree of transference of content and use of the resource kit items into new classroom learning activities for the trainee’s students for both the normal functional anatomy of the human respiratory system and associated general and cell/tissue/organ-specific cancer biology.