Abstract
The Strive to Thrive series consists of five monographs aimed at late-grade school and early-high school students as educational materials in basic science, with an added focus of practical and hands-on environmental health science. The five-volume series is the result of a grant from the Science Education Partnership Award from the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health. The grant, entitled “HealthRICH: Health Risks, Information and Choices,” focused on improving the understanding of environmental health sciences by young teens and their families to improve their choices to reduce environmental health risks.
Innovative educational approaches and paradigms are necessary, not only for toxicology and environmental health science education but also for science in the broadest sense. The world and society today, with their rapid acquisition and equally necessary rapid assimilation of data and information into usable knowledge, no longer allow the segregation of science from arts and humanities. Science, toxicology, and the skill of assessing risks are embedded in everyone’s daily activities. Consequently, it is natural to teach these skills in the context of a student’s complete learning experiences. For students to be adequately equipped to live in society today as well as to assist in the progression and development of society into the future, two essential criteria are required: toxicology and assessing health risks must be interesting and the process must be accurate. It is important for the legacy of today’s toxicologists to adequately prepare society to understand the inherent toxicity associated with materials and activities and to adequately assess the risks associated with them. The National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health recognizes the need for competently assessing health risks and the Strive to Thrive series is an important tool in filling that need.
The structure used in developing the monographs was team approach of various academic scientists from several universities, principally in Ohio. The editor, authors, contributors, and reviewers used a multidisciplinary problem/issue structure in developing the topical monographs. This approach, in addition to being an effective educational style, is not dissimilar to the everyday problems that toxicologists and environmental health scientists address in their professional capacities.
The Strive to Thrive series is composed of five monographs: Lather Up!, Wet Your Whistle!, More ThaN Skin Deep!, Breathing Room!, and Safe Not Sorry!. Each monograph has the same basic structure, using a question-based learning theme based on the concept of thriving: “thrive v. to grow in a strong and healthy way.” The questions for the student throughout the monographs are derived from the theme of thriving. In addition to the question-driven structure, each monograph contains a page that explains how to use the monograph and how the specific monograph can assist the reader to “thrive.”
Each monograph has the same basic structure: Challenge, which is usually where the initial question is stated; Have More Fun, which lists additional activities for the student; Appendix; and References. The identical structure across the monographs allows the student to use all of the monographs simultaneously. Furthermore, the structure within each monograph allows the student the freedom to move among the various challenges without following a prescribed order or sequence.
The scope of the topics covered include general chemical safety, microbiology, drinking water, indoor pollution, and dermatology. These topics are presented in a way that highlights their importance and usefulness to the students in their practical, every day lives. The mode of presentation of the topics and the accuracy of the explanations provide students with a demystified comprehension of environmental health that they would likely not get elsewhere. Furthermore, the editor and the large number of contributors to the monographs have taken fundamental principles of chemistry and biology and accurately related these concepts in a practical way that the student can see. It is not surprising that the Strive to Thrive five-monograph series received the 2008 Teachers’ Choice Award, was recommended by the National Science Teachers Association, and was an Award Winner by USA Book News.
In line with theme of “strive to thrive,” there are two areas that could have received more attention: food safety, including nutrition, and risk, as a distinct topic including epidemiology, associated with chemical exposures. Food safety, whether contamination by unintentional means or intentional additives for a specific purposes, was not addressed in the monographs. Microbial adulteration of food was only obliquely addressed in the monograph on microbiology (Lather Up!). Nutrition and its importance to issues such as obesity and diabetes, although not immediately related to environmental health risks, would have been a significant addition to the “strive to thrive” theme.
The monograph on chemical safety, Safe Not Sorry! although useful and practical to the student reader, missed an opportunity to educate the student beyond an understanding of household chemicals and reading labels to identify potential hazards. An expansion of inherent or innate toxicity to include the concept of exposure, leading ultimately to assessing risks, would have been an important addition to the monograph. Although the concept of risk is addressed in the More Than Skin Deep monograph, it could have been treated more rigorously, and indeed more adequately and effectively, in this monograph. If the topic of risk were treated in more depth, there would have been the opportunity to explain fundamental concepts in epidemiology and cause and effect relationships.
Although these monographs will not likely find their way into the practicing toxicologists’ daily activities, they may indeed be acquired by the toxicologist as useful references when called upon to simply and succinctly explain a toxicological principle or when asked to speak to student or lay groups about toxicology or environmental science. The monographs can be purchased directly online at www.terrificscience.com/sciencestore.