Smartly partnering with Oregon’s leading medical and research center, the West Linn/Wilsonville School District last fall put on a workshop to encourage healthy kids called “Let’s Get Healthy!”. Through interactive exhibits, students got to learn about how their diet and sleep patterns affect their health, and they got to learn their blood pressure and body mass index numbers, and what these numbers mean overall. The students at OHSU got to gather data, anonymously, from the students to use for their own research into life habits and obesity, with the chance to earn grants as an end result, and to gather data for the International Science and Engineering Fair. OHSU has been running this fair since 2007, beginning first at OMSI, and then taking it out to schools and other locations.
This new 5 year partnership will give young children the chance to see how they can make positive changes now that will impact their future health. The hands-on nature of the first fair also engages kids at a time when they are eager to learn. Perhaps an unforeseen outcome will be getting more kids interested in science and health careers, something desperately needed in the US right now. The President started the STEM initiative in the fall of 2009, STEM standing for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, something in which the US has been lagging for several years now. This partnership can tie directly in to this initiative, and help ease the shortage of doctors and nurses that will occur when the Boomers retire.
Our tax dollars fund both the school district and the university, so to put them to smart uses benefits not just the students in both programs, but the public at large. Information that the kids can use to determine their own future and make them responsible to themselves will produce a better group of citizens, ready to participate in society and be accountable for their own decisions. And, unlike the junket to the UN conference in 2007, this program does not cost anything extra and will have tangible benefits for years to come.
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