Minority Initiative for Students and Teachers (MIST)-Ph*

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Context: Minority under-representation in medical education, practice, and research remains a significant problem nationwide. Even though American students in general perform more poorly in science and math than do students of many other countries, the average science proficiency among black and Hispanic children is far below that of American white children. With American's changing demographics, poor and minority children must be provided with access and better opportunities to acquire strong science, research, and math backgrounds. Design: This is a five year educational program. The proposed program will support a new curriculum design that will utilize major clinical diseases affecting minority populations to interest and teach minority students about research and health careers. Each year of the grant will have one clinical focus that is important to the health care of this country: obesity, cancer prevention, asthma, hypertension, and coronary heart disease. Each fall the Curriculum Committee will develop the curriculum after a comprehensive needs assessment and evaluation of the previous year curriculum. The goal will be to teach anatomy, pathophysiology, epidemiology, genetics, behavior, pharmacology and research applications using these disease models to gain and hold the student's interest. Additionally, there will be programmatic offerings for middle and high school teachers and parents as they play a very significant role in the educational future of American children. Specific Aims: (1) To implement age-appropriate programs for urban underrepresented minority students (and other students with a demonstrated need) in grades 8-12 that strengthens: Domain-specific knowledge in health science, research and mathematics; domain-independent competencies necessary for academic and workplace success; and skills in higher order critical thinking and problem solving, (2) To promote awareness of and interest in careers in biological science, research and health professions among 8th and 12th graders from the greater Newark area, (3) To expand, for pre-college science teachers, the base of health-related knowledge, the practice of performance-based assessments, and the use of innovated teaching modalities, (4) To enhance parent's and involvement in their children's education by offering seminars/workshops that teach skills that will support their child's progress, and (5) To evaluate the effectiveness of the program in reaching its objectives by using a variety of assessment strategies. Settings: UMD-New Jersey Medical School and St. James Preparatory School in Newark, NJ. Participants: One hundred twenty five students will be recruited during the first year of the program. Middle and high school teachers will be recruited in years one through four of the program. Parents and/or legal guardians of the children who participate in the program.