Community Outreach and Education Core

麻省理工学院COEC项目的主要使命是提高人们对环境对健康影响的认识和理解。提高认识是改变的第一步，因此，通过教育宣传，我们的目标是通过向公民提供知识，帮助他们做出明智的选择，使他们能够预防环境引起的疾病。虽然COEC的活动涉及所有年龄段的人，但COEC的理念是关注青年，这是我们社区中面临风险的关键部分，他们可以从帮助他们做出更好生活选择的知识中受益匪浅。此外，了解环境健康和了解生命科学的基本原理是相辅相成的，从而提供了知情决策和科学灵感的双重好处。 因此，麻省理工学院COEC建议继续重视青年，同时将方案机会扩大到教师和卫生保健专业人员，他们最有可能向社区传播有价值的环境卫生信息。 COEC小组继续在所涵盖的概念材料和教学工具方面进行创新。通过开发新的实践项目，数百名学生参与了学习过程，从而接受了有关环境及其对健康影响的重要概念。此外，在过去的一个周期中，COEC不仅接触了学生，还接触了数千名各年龄段的社区成员，通过各种媒体，包括参与式研讨会，博物馆展览，培训计划，实验室实验和专业视频。 在与中心的核心利益紧密结合，并在强有力的领导下，简化程序和优化其方向，COEC已成功地提高了公众对环境对健康的影响的理解，通过连接暴露的影响到基本的细胞过程。因此，下一个供资期的具体目标将侧重于继续向所有年龄的社区成员传授环境卫生基本概念的活动，重点是学生、教师和保健专业人员。

The primary mission of MIT's COEC program is to raise awareness and understanding of the impact of the environment on health. Awareness is the first step toward change, and therefore through educational outreach, we aim to empower citizens to prevent environmentally induced diseases by providing them with knowledge to help inform wise choices. While COEC activities reach people of all ages, it is the philosophy of this COEC to focus upon youth, a critical at-risk portion of our community who can benefit tremendously from knowledge that will help them make better life choices. Furthermore, understanding environmental health and understanding the fundamentals of life sciences go hand-in-hand, thus providing the dual benefit of informed decision-making, and inspiration in science. Therefore, MIT COEC proposes to continue with its emphasis on youth, while at the same time extending programmatic opportunities to teachers and health care professionals, who are best poised to disseminate valuable environmental health information to the community. This COEC group continues to be innovative both in terms of the conceptual materials covered, but also in terms of the pedagogical tools. Through the development of novel hands-on programs, hundreds of students have become Involved in the learning process, and thus receptive to important concepts about the environment and its impact on their health. In addition, this past cycle, COEC reached out not only to students, but also to thousands of community members of all ages, through a variety of media, including participatory workshops, museum exhibitions, training programs, laboratory experiments, and professional videos. In close alignment with the core interests of the Center, and under strong leadership to streamline the program and optimize its direction, COEC has successfully improved the public understanding of the impact of the environment on health, by connecting the impact of exposures to basic cellular processes. The specific aims for this next funding period are thus focused on activities that will continue to teach fundamental concepts in environmental health to community members of all ages, with emphasis on to students, teachers, health care professionals.