Health oasis in the desert southwest.

In the desert Southwest, communities are slaking their thirst for knowledge with an outreach program that is overflowing with environmental health information. The Southwest Environmental Health Sciences Center (SWEHSC) at the University of Arizona in Tucson is one of 21 such centers that, along with 5 Marine and Freshwater Biomedical Sciences Centers and 1 Developmental Center, make up the 28 NIEHS core centers. Each center includes a Community Outreach and Education Program (COEP) that serves as an " information aqueduct, " carrying the results of research on environmental health issues to the people affected by them, particularly those who are the most vulnerable. At the SWEHSC, outreach efforts especially target schoolchildren. COEP director Stefani Hines, who holds master's degrees in both education and environmental science, has 10 years' experience in K–12 education. " Because of my comfort and connections in education, the majority of our program focuses on that target audience , " she explains. The COEP Web site, located at http:// swehsc.pharmacy.arizona.edu/coep/, is a centerpiece of the center's outreach efforts. Although it proves informative for anyone who is interested in toxicology, it is aimed mainly at teachers and their students. Among the educational resources are down-loadable lectures, presentations, activities, and curricula, primarily intended for seventh to twelfth-grade students. The materials cover topics such as air quality and naturally occurring pesticides; lectures and presentations introduce users to cancer processes, toxicology basics, effects of nicotine and alcohol, and drug development from plant compounds. The site also describes K–12 programs in toxicology and environmental health science and programs that are currently in development. One Web-based offering is Cluster Busters, a curriculum that presents information on disease clusters and casts students as scientists charged with investigating the outbreaks. The COEP also holds summer workshops for teachers. These workshops, collectively titled " Integrating High School Science Content Through Toxicology, " adopt a different toxicologic focus each year and offer lectures by center researchers, research discussions, and hands-on activities. " I am proud to say we get many repeat participants, which is the ultimate compliment to a program, " says Hines. Another program, the Environmental Health Sciences Training & Education Program, partners with eight other COEPs to incorporate toxicology into K–9 lesson plans. The program is taught to teachers who then further disseminate the guidelines to their colleagues. Hines is especially proud of the Integrating Multiple Perspectives Across the Curriculum for Today and Tomorrow (IMPACTT) …