The focus of the SEEK Curriculum in Health and Biomedical Science is diseases and health conditions that disproportionately affect minorities. However, the lessons are appropriate for all children, regardless of their ethnicity, because the health conditions that afflict minorities—such as heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and obesity—are found widely in the general population as well.
Fourth Grade Instructional Units: 1. Nutrition: Balance and Imbalance (Obesity), 2. Traumatic Brain Injuries, 3. Infectious Diseases, and 4. Environmental Toxics.
Fifth Grade Instructional Units: 1. Nutrition and Diabetes, 2. Asthma and Lung Disease, 3. Heart Disease, and 4. Genetics and Sickle Cell Anemia.
The curriculum takes a “learn by doing” approach to teach scientific concepts and terminology.
Students learn through experiments, games, group problem solving, and other activities. They practice observing, questioning, making predictions, hypothesizing, planning experiments, identifying and controlling variables, collecting data, measuring, estimating, making graphs, and drawing conclusions.
The SEEK Family Festival was designed to accompany the SEEK Curriculum, but it can be presented independently at schools, museums, and other venues. The 19 SEEK Festival stations include hands-on activities related to the eight topic areas of the curriculum:
The SEEK Curriculum and Family Festival were developed by Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute and Children’s Hospital’s Hall of Health museum with funding from a Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) from the National Center for Research Resources at the National Institutes of Health.