A Health Newsletter To Teach Science Knowledge: BioRAP!

This research describes the evaluation of a science curriculum newsletter called BioRAP which serves as a vehicle to teach current health science content. The research objectives were to estimate the relationships of socioeconomic status, ethnic group, gender, grade, student ability, and classroom use characteristics with student knowledge and self-efficacy outcomes after use of the newsletter. Topics covered in the specific newsletters studied include cancer, sun and skin, AIDS, and product safety. Results indicate that the newsletter continues to demonstrate positive achievement and student satisfaction outcomes with greatly expanded distribution and use by a diverse sample of youngsters, and that students clearly learn meaningful science content from BioRAP. The perspective and theoretical framework of BioRAP is also outlined. (DDR)