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The "Contemporary Health Series" covers critical health and family life topics in a sequence of modules with two curricular divisions: "Into Adolescence" for middle school teachers and "Entering Adulthood" for high school teachers. This module presents a tobacco "no use" message to students in grades five through eight through a series of eight lessons. To enable students to better understand the effects of tobacco use on the body, the first lesson explains the structure of the respiratory system and its functions. Lesson 2 teaches that all forms of tobacco, including smokeless tobacco, are harmful. Lesson 3 explores the physical effects of tobacco use. Lesson 4 continues the examination of the dangers of tobacco use, including the effects of sidestream and secondhand smoke. Lesson 5 allows students to consider the various factors that influence their decisions and ways to counteract negative influences; lesson 6 deals with peer pressure and offers students the opportunity to practice refusal skills. Lesson 7 continues the study of influences on decisions about tobacco use with an examination of advertising techniques. The final lesson helps students look at reasons for the choices people make about tobacco use and encourages students to make a public statement about tobacco use and to support the goal of a tobacco-free society. (NB)

This booklet is part of the "Children's Activity Series," a set of four supplemental teaching resources that promote awareness about health, family life, and cultural diversity for children in kindergarten through third grade. Nine activities are included in this booklet to help children be "germ smart" help children in kindergarten through third grade be "germ smart" and understand and remember basic information about disease and disease prevention. Age-appropriate examples and a highly interactive, visual format are used to help students understand what germs are, how the body fights disease and infections, and how one's behaviors can help or hurt the body's immune system. Activities are designed to help children learn how germs spread from person to person and to understand which diseases are easy or hard to "catch." Students will also learn what steps to take to help them stay healthy: for example, getting enough sleep, eating right, washing hands, and other basic good health strategies. (NB)

This booklet is part of the "Children's Activity Series," a set of four supplemental teaching resources that promote awareness about health, family life, and cultural diversity for children in kindergarten through third grade. The booklet presents seven activities to teach young children in kindergarten through third grade to remain tobacco free. Children are introduced to the idea of tobacco as a dangerous, habit-forming drug, and discover how second-hand smoke affects people and pets. Activities in the book allow children to use everyday materials to create models of hearts and lungs and learn through a variety of hands-on activities about the harmful effects of tobacco. Activities are structured to help children gain an understanding of a healthy respiratory system, tobacco as a habit-forming drug, second-hand smoke and how to avoid it, and how to define and communicate their own "no tobacco" rules. The activities are designed to help children build skills they will need later to resist media and peer pressure to smoke or chew tobacco, and to give them the skills and understanding they need to make healthy, tobacco-free choices. (NB)