School Health Education Resources for Teacher’s Toolbox

Health education provides students with the knowledge and skills necessary to practice healthy behaviors and teaches students how to recognize the influence of responsible decision-making on quality of life. By providing effective health education programming, schools can help students develop health literacy skills so they are able to access information, resources, and services in order to maintain and promote healthy lifestyles. SHAPE America has been one of several leading voices in providing guidance and resources for effective health education. 

Below are just a few of the tools, products, and services for health educators in elementary, middle school and high school that help support this commitment.

Resources

| ▼ Learning and Networking | ▼ Curriculum Resources | ▼ Tools and Templates | ▼ SHAPE America Journal Articles

 


 

Skills-based Learning Activity Ideas

Thank you for your interest in the skills-based learning activities for health education! Before you access the resources, please take a moment to review this document.

Purpose: The Skills-Based Learning Activities Task Force was designed in order to address a need for quality, classroom ready skills-based learning activities in health education. Over the course of several months, the task force worked on developing and reviewing activities that would be ready to use in the health education classroom but that would also be supporting best practice. We hope to be able to grow the available resources in the coming years.

Helpful Information: Here is some information that might be useful to you as you review the activities:

  • The activities are designed to be used with any health topic area. You might notice that there is no content specifically included in any of the activities. The task force thought that the resources would be most helpful to the most amount of people if the focus was on the skill not the content. This allows you the opportunity to insert any topics that work with your curriculum into the activity. You may choose to use your state standards, Standard 1 from the National Health Education Standards or other resources to determine the content that meets the needs of your students.
  • Many activities include suggested topic areas that might be especially good fits with the skill and activity but you are not limited to these suggestions.
  • As you are looking at the activities, be sure to look at which step of the skill development model is being addressed through the activities. Activities that focus on skill introduction, steps of the skill and modeling should be included in the curriculum prior to any practice or reinforcement activities.
  • You want to also make note of the level of skill performance of the activity. If your students have not yet developed competence in a skill, you would not want to include an activity that addresses skill proficiency. Make sure the level matches the needs of your students.
  • All activities include any additional resources that would be required to run the activities as written. You are welcome to use any or all of the worksheets and other deliverables that are included.
  • Please note that some of the resources listed in the activity templates link to independently owned web sites. By clicking on these links you may leave the SHAPE America website.
  • If you have any questions or feedback regarding the Skills-based Learning Activities Resource, please email programming@shapeamerica.org.

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    Skills-Based Learning Activities Task Force
    Sarah Benes, Chair -- Merrimack College
    Mary Connolly – Cambridge College
    Maureen Grizio – Anne Arundel County, MD
    Cristy Jefson – University of Wisconsin Whitewater
    Donna McAllister – Vermont Agency of Education
    Kim Razzano – East Stroudsburg University of Pennsylvania
    Lisa Rakoz – Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, WA
    Jacqui Williams – Harford County Public Schools, MD
    Brian Griffith – SHAPE America Health Education Council Liaison
    Joe Halowich – SHAPE America

    GRADES

    School Health Education Council

    Holly Alperin (Chair), University of New Hampshire, NH
    Mary Connolly, Cambridge College, MA
    Charlie Rizzuto, Oyster Bay High School, NY
    Chia-Liang (Leo) Dai, University of Nevada - Las Vegas, NV
    Stacy Furness, University of Wisconsin River Falls, WI
    Rachael Gibson, NYC Department of Education, NY
    Kristin McGurl, Chappaqua Public Schools, NY
    Christopher Pepper, San Francisco Unified School District, CA
    Megan Adkins (BOD Liaison), University of Nebraska at Kearney, NE

    Apply to serve on the School Health Education Council!

    Classroom-ready & teacher-friendly resources you can use right now to help your students on the path to health and physical literacy. Learn more

     

     
    SHAPE America Journal Articles
    American Journal of Health Education
  • Aerobic Walking Exercise and Lifestyle Habits Interact with Sleep Quality, Stress, and Life Satisfaction: Results from a Randomized Crossover Study
    • May / June 2021
  • Use of Outdoor Education to Increase Physical Activity and Science Learning among Low-Income Children from Urban Schools
    • March / April 2021
  • Responsibilities and Competencies for Health Education Specialists: Implications for Research and Practice in the American Journal of Health Education
    • January / February 2021
  • School Staff’s Perspectives on the Adoption of Elementary-School Physical Activity Approaches: A Qualitative Study
    • November / December 2020
  • Effects of a 16-week Online Classroom Physical Activity Integration Course on Student-Level Outcomes
    • September / October 2020
    See more
     
    JOPERD: Journal of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance
  • Preparing Health and Physical Education Teachers to Become Trauma Invested
    • November / December 2020
  • Integrating the health.moves.minds. Program into PETE
    • May / June 2020
  • Health Education in the 21st Century: A Skills-based Approach
    • September 2019
  • Good Health: The Power of Power
    • November / December 2017
     
    Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport
  • Physical Activity, Health-Related Fitness, and Classroom Behavior in Children: A Discriminant Function Analysis
    • December 2018
  • Educating Students for a Lifetime of Physical Activity: Enhancing Mindfulness, Motivation, and Meaning
    • September 2017
     
    Strategies: A journal for Physical and Sport Educators
  • Become a Champion for Healthy, Active Schools
    • March / April 2019
  • Girls in Action: Fostering Relatedness in and beyond Physical and Health Education
    • July / August 2018
  • Instructional Assessment Strategies for Health and Physical Education
    • May / June 2017
     
     
    Curriculum Resources
  • Advocating for Healthy Nutrition Habits Unit
  • Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (WSCC) Model
  • Health Literacy Articles and Definition
  • Appropriate Practices in School-Based Health Education 
  • National Health Education Standards (NHES)

  • smokeSCREEN: A smoking prevention videogame from the play2PREVENT Lab at Yale Center for Health & Learning Games and CVS Health Foundation.
    1. Go to smokeSCREENgame.org
    2. Click on the "Request Access" tab at the top of the website and fill out the form.
    3. You will receive an email from smokeSCREEN.org within 2-3 business days with the number of usernames/passwords requested.
    4. Each student should be assigned a unique username/password and be directed to click on the "Login" tab at the top of the website to access the game. Students may login from any device from this page and their gameplay will be continued.
     
    Tools & Templates