Health Education

Unit 1

• Health choices and long-term consequences of choices
• Benefits of, practices for, and personal responsibility for health (including healthy eating, personal hygiene, exercise, stress-management, adequate sleep, social and emotional health, disease prevention, and avoidance of accidents and dangers)
• Components of a personal health plan
• Impacts of social pressures on physical, emotional, and social health
• Structure, functions, and interdependence of major body systems
• Changes in anatomy during puberty
• Role of hormones in growth, development, and personal health
• Myths and facts related to disease transmission and prevention

Unit 2

• Ways the body defends itself against germs
• Communicable, noncommunicable, and hereditary diseases
• Use, abuse, and effects of medications, tobacco, alcohol, and other substances
• Relationship between tobacco, alcohol, and drugs and unsafe situations
• Preventing the use of tobacco, alcohol, and illegal drugs
• Basic understanding of first-aid procedures
• Prevention of and response to deliberate and accidental injuries
• Reasons and ways to avoid violence, gangs, weapons, and drugs

Unit 3

• Environmental factors that affect health
• Skills to identify, avoid, report, and cope with potentially dangerous situations
• Practices for responding to emergencies
• Positive and negative characteristics of social groups, gangs, clubs, cliques
• Development of self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-control
• Physical, social, and emotional impacts of decisions regarding sexual behavior
• Strategies to resist pressures to become sexually active
• Respect and consideration for all individuals

Unit 4

• Understand appropriate ways to express emotions
• Positive social interactions with peers, in home, and in the community
• Bullying, alternative behaviors to bullying, and appropriate responses to bullying
• Strategies for resolving conflicts with peers and others
• Skills for meeting people, making friends, and being a good friend
• Getting personal support from family
• How and where to get help in making health decisions
• Highway safety and traffic regulations
• Fire and arson prevention and safety