CEEH and Educational Outreach

Since the CEEH was founded in 1995, staff from our Community Outreach and Ethics Core (COEC) have collaborated with Center investigators on a number of educational initiatives. Through these efforts, a great many K-12 teachers and students have been exposed to the core concepts of the environmental health sciences (EHS).

The CEEH is committed to continuing the important work of educating the next generation of scientists and citizens to the extent that resources allow. In the years ahead, COEC will focus on the dissemination of existing classroom materials, many of which were developed previously with NIEHS education grant funds and are available for download on this site. COEC staff also plan to continue to emphasize the K-20 “pipeline” approach to education, working with both high school students and university students to raise awareness of and enthusiasm for career opportunities in EHS and public health.

To learn more about our Academy for Teaching about Health and Environment Associations (ATHENA), please visit our ATHENA page.

Some examples of past K-12 projects include:

The Youth Network for Healthy Communities (YNHC) videoconference series: Between 2000 and 2010, YNHC has reached more than 140 teachers and thousand of students across Washington State. It brought Eastern and Western Washington, rural towns and urban centers, low-income and high-income schools together to seek answers to a broad range of locally relevant EHS issues.The 2009-10 Teacher's Guide is available for free download (View/Download, 3.4 MB). You can also visit the YNCH web site, maintained by students at Wenatchee High School, to learn more (Visit the Website).

The Integrated Environmental Health Middle School Project (IEHMSP): In Fall 2000, the CEEH was awarded a seven-year NIEHS education grant to launch the IEHMSP. The project supported a teacher-training workshop in August of each year, during which teachers were provided with information on how to incorporate EHS topics into a variety of disciplines, such as math, science, social studies, and language arts. This ambitious project resulted in the creation of a wide-range of EHS and ecogenetics-related classroom materials, the establishment of lasting relationships with numerous teachers, schools, and districts around the state, and evaluation results that have significant implications for project-based instruction in middle schools. Click here to view/download the IEHMSP Final Report (PDF, 5.8 MB)

Health and Safety Awareness for Working Teens (HSAWT): This program began in 1995 and was originally a collaboration between the CEEH and the WA Department of Labor and Industries. The goal of the program is to reduce work-related injuries and illnesses in teenagers using education as a prevention strategy. The program achieves its goals through both curriculum development and teacher training. COEC support is no longer needed to sustain the program, which has been successfully funded every biennium since 1999 by the Washington State Department of Labor and Industries through an award to the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences. You can visit the HSAWT website to learn more and download free curricula (Visit the Website).