Health Education in High School
SFUSD requires that all High School students receive a minimum of one semester of health education.
Requirements
A 78-lesson breakdown follows:
- 21 lessons on growth/development from Be Real. Be Ready. comprehensive sexuality curriculum
- 15 lessons on alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs, including all 12 lessons from Towards No Drug Abuse
- 15 lessons on nutrition and physical activity
- 10 lessons on mental, emotional, and social health
- 7 lessons on safety and injury and violence prevention
- 10 lessons on other health content areas and relevant health issues
Resources by Subject Area
Mental / Emotional
Curriculum
Recommended Lessons:
Health Smart High School: Emotional & Mental Health
This 283-page book includes sixteen lessons on mental and emotional health, as well as assessments, handouts, a glossary, and a DVD of digital resources. ETR’s Health Smart program gives youth the knowledge and skills to make healthy choices and establish life-long healthy behaviors.
- Lesson 1: Dimensions of Health
- Lesson 2: Exploring Emotional Health
- Lesson 5: Understanding Stress
- Lesson 6: Ways to Manage Stress
- Lesson 7: Responding to Emotions in Healthy Ways
- Lesson 8: Skills for Effective Communication
- Lesson 11: Coping with Loss and Grief
- Lesson 12: Managing Anger
- Lesson 15: Understanding Mental Health Disorders
- Lesson 16: Getting Help for Mental Health Issues
Additional Resources:
The Mask You Live In
In this 1 hour and 37 min. DVD, The Mask You Live In follows boys and young men as they struggle to stay true to themselves while negotiating America’s narrow definition of masculinity. The Mask You Live In ultimately illustrates how we, as a society, can raise a healthier generation of boys and young men.
View a trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc45-ptHMxo
Miss Representation
In this 1 hour 29 min. DVD, Miss Representation exposes how mainstream media and culture contribute to the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America. This film explores stories from teenage girls and interviews with politicians, journalists, entertainers, activists, and academics.
View a trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2UZZV3xU6Q
Inside the Teenage Brain
In this 53min. DVD, “Inside the Teenage Brain,” FRONTLINE chronicles how scientists are exploring the brain and finding some new explanations for why adolescents behave the way they do. These discoveries could change the way we parent, teach, or perhaps even understand our teenagers.
View a trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nBqadr1Euc
Being Mortal
In this 54 min. DVD, “Being Mortal,” FRONTLINE follows renowned New Yorker writer and Boston surgeon Atul Gawande as he explores the relationships doctors have with patients who are nearing the end of life. The film investigates the practice of caring for the dying, and shows how doctors — himself included — are often remarkably untrained, ill-suited and uncomfortable talking about chronic illness and death with their patients.
View a trailer here: http://www.pbs.org/video/frontline-being-mortal-trailer/
Kaiser Permanente Resilience Squad
Resilience Squad is available to schools and communities free of charge and offers tools for students to build healthy relationships, manage high levels of stress and trauma, and increase their ability to communicate effectively. The Resilience Squad series of 4 workshops can help high school students better cope with stress and adversity. For more information: https://etnortherncalifornia.kaiserpermanente.org/resilience-squad/, 1-877-353-2223
National Geographic documentary: Stress: Portrait of a Killer
This is a powerful 56 min. documentary film on the health effects of stress.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYG0ZuTv5rs
American Society of Suicide Prevention’s More Than Sad: Teen Depression
This 25 min. film vividly reveals the realities of teen depression.
https://vimeo.com/113932733
Safe Dates: An Adolescent Dating Abuse Prevention Curriculum, 2nd Edition
Highly engaging and interactive, Safe Dates helps teens recognize the difference between caring, supportive relationships and controlling, manipulative, or abusive dating relationships. From Hazelden publishing, this 149 page book includes ten lessons and a DVD of digital resources.
Groundspark’s Let’s Get Real
Let’s Get Real is a 35 min. documentary DVD that examines a variety of issues that lead to taunting and bullying, including racial differences, perceived sexual orientation, learning disabilities, religious differences, sexual harassment and others. The film not only gives a voice to targeted kids, but also to kids who do the bullying to find out why they lash out at their peers and how it makes them feel. The most heartening part of Let’s Get Real includes stories of kids who have mustered the courage to stand up for themselves or a classmate. Spanish subtitles available.
The accompanying 130 page curriculum guide features valuable lesson plans, discussion starters, classroom activities and handouts for teachers to use in conjunction with the film.
Human Relations Media: The Ten Signs of Relationship Abuse
The Ten Signs of Relationship Abuse from Human Relations Media is a 28 min. DVD that combines powerful interviews of battered and verbally abused teens with expert commentary. It delivers key facts about dating abuse. Teen speakers and dating abuse experts offer helpful advice on how teens can get away from potentially unhealthy, dangerous relationships involving verbal, emotional, and physical abuse. Includes a curriculum binder and digital versions of activities, handouts, and assessments.
Bullied: A Teaching Tolerance Documentary
Bullied is a 40 min. documentary DVD that chronicles one student’s ordeal at the hands of anti-gay bullies and offers an inspiring message of hope to those fighting harassment today.
Bully Dance by Janet Perlman
Bully Dance is a 10 min. zero dialogue DVD with a strong message about bullies. In the film, a community is disrupted when a bully victimizes a smaller member of the group. Eventually, the whole community becomes involved in dealing with the bully, who is himself, a victim in his own house. Issues of peer pressure, accountability, and imbalance of power are explored in a story that deals with a sensitive and pervasive problem. It has special resonance for schools in the US today.
National Alliance on Mental Illness: Breaking the Silence
These lesson plans aim to clear up misconceptions, explain many specific mental illnesses, and combat issues such as stigmas and self-medicating.
Growth and Development
Sexual Harassment/Violence Lessons
Curriculum
Recommended Lessons
San Francisco Unified School District’s
Be Real. Be Ready.
Be Real. Be Ready. is SFUSD’s comprehensive relationship and sexuality curriculum for high school students. It is:
- Science-informed
- Skills-based
- LGBTQ-inclusive
- Medically accurate
- Designed to meet the California State Health Educational Content Standards
- Designed to meet the requirements of the California Healthy Youth Act.
The curriculum was created by SFUSD teachers in collaboration with the San Francisco Department of Public Health and the Adolescent Health Working Group. In addition to increasing students’ knowledge and skills, the curriculum connects students to health services in their community. The lessons in Be Real. Be Ready. have been reviewed and approved by SFUSD’s Curriculum and Materials Review Task Force. If you have questions or feedback about the curriculum, please contact us.
Full Information and Downloads
Additional Resources
Love is Not an Angry Thing
In this 45 min. DVD, viewers are introduced to a relationship that at first seems like love, that also exhibits warning signs of abuse. This film includes interview segments with domestic violence counselors who make connections regarding patterns of abuse in the story and in real-life situations.
BBC Earth’s 9 Months That Made You: The Lasting Effects of Our Time in the Womb
This 3 hr. DVD from 2015 follows the gestation process from conception to birth. Using state-of-the-art CGI and revealing the latest scientific research and advances in medicine, the process is now shown in forensic detail.
The DVD contains English subtitles. View a trailer at PBS.org
Nova’s Life’s Greatest Miracle
This 60 min. DVD from 2001 is a remake of Lennart Nilsson’s world famous film “Miracle of Life”. This completely updated edition tells the inside-the-womb story of human life from conception to birth using the latest technological advances in microscopy and medical imaging.
Put This on the {Map}
In this 32 min. DVD, Put This On The Map follows queer youth in the suburbs of Seattle as they give you a glimpse into their lives of struggle, fear, isolation, violence, and resiliency. View trailer
Human Relations Media’s Coming Out: What Every Teen (Gay or Straight) Needs to Know
This 23 min. DVD from 2011 offers portraits of real LGBT kids who have come out in schools across the country, as well as their straight allies and their teachers who have dealt with this issue. The program focuses on the psychological and legal issues of bullying and sexual harassment and stresses the importance of creating a safe, tolerant environment for all students, regardless of one’s own personal beliefs or feelings.
This resource includes a digital versions of activities, handouts, and assessments. The DVD contains Spanish subtitles. View a trailer at HRMvideo.com.
Frontline’s Growing Up Trans
This 90 min. DVD is told from the perspective of parents, doctors, and, most revealing of all, eight transgender kids themselves, ranging in ages from 9 to 19. FRONTLINE takes a powerful look at this new generation, exploring the medical possibilities, struggles, and choices transgender kids and their families face today.
Groudspark’s Straightlaced: How Gender’s Got Us All Tied Up
This film is a crucial piece needed to teach our Be Real. Be Ready. curriculum.
This 67 min. DVD is a documentary that includes the perspectives of teens who self-identify as straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, or questioning, and represent all points of the gender spectrum.
With courage and unexpected humor, the teens open up their lives to the camera: choosing between “male” and “female” deodorant; deciding whether to go along with anti-gay taunts in the locker room; having the courage to take ballet; avoiding the restroom so they won’t get beaten up; or mourning the suicide of a classmate. It quickly becomes clear that just about everything teens do requires thinking about gender and sexuality. Straightlaced offers both teens and adults a way out of anxiety, fear, and violence, and points the way toward a more inclusive, empowering culture.
Scenarios USA’s The Shortest of the Shorts
This 22 min. DVD contains four very short films , dealing with topics from condom use, STI testing, and pregnancy.
All Scenarios USA sex education films were written by teens for teens, then were professionally produced and edited in 2008. They’ve won several awards and critical accolades, and many contain appearances by famous actors. Characters are diverse in ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.
Scenarios USA’s Just Like You Imagined?
Just Like You Imagined? is a 16 min. DVD about six teens who hope to avoid heartbreak, HIV, and hard truths about their relationships, while remaining true to who they are.
All Scenarios USA sex education films were written by teens for teens, then were professionally produced and edited in 2008. They’ve won several awards and critical accolades, and many contain appearances by famous actors. Characters are diverse in ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.
Scenarios USA’s Reflections
In this 22 min. DVD, three high school best girlfriends have seen each other through everything – school, romance, family, and a baby. When they make a pact to take an HIV test together, they each face a fear about their own sexual behavior. The results are surprising and change their relationship forever.
All Scenarios USA sex education films were written by teens for teens, then were professionally produced and edited in 2008. They’ve won several awards and critical accolades, and many contain appearances by famous actors. Characters are diverse in ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.
Scenarios USA’s Monster
In this 11 min. DVD, three young men chat up the new girl on the block, and only one gets lucky. But he, however, is forced to deal with his HIV status.
All Scenarios USA sex education films were written by teens for teens, then were professionally produced and edited in 2008. They’ve won several awards and critical accolades, and many contain appearances by famous actors. Characters are diverse in ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.
Human Relations Media: Understanding HIV and AIDS
This 20 min. DVD from 2005 presents an age-appropriate review of the basic terms, definitions and biology of the HIV virus plus means of infection, treatment, and protection. The program also sends a clear message that abstinence is the only 100% effective option for avoiding sexual transmission of the HIV virus. It includes a dialogue with middle school students and two HIV positive young people on issues that impact their lives. It includes a curriculum binder and digital versions of activities, handouts, and assessments. Spanish version also available.
3 girls i know… intimate stories about young women, teen sexuality, pregnancy and HIV/AIDS
This 54 min DVD made in 2004 is a documentary by Paula Mozen. In it, Maggie, Ari, and Tishaun, three teenagers from Montana, San Francisco, and Baltimore, find their lives abruptly altered by the impact of sexual decisions. This contemporary documentary follows these young women from varied ethnic backgrounds as they explore issues of sexuality and relationships. By frankly discussing their fears, sexual identities, and the consequences of their choices – among them pregnancy and testing HIV-positive – the girls promote personal responsibility and the need for greater sex education and AIDS awareness.
Female Pelvic Model
This manipulative can be checked out and returned. One per class. Plastic and transparent, it can be taken apart to reveal a cross-section of the female internal reproductive organs. It can be used as a visual learning tool, as well as female/internal condom demonstration and practice.
Penis Models
These manipulatives can be checked out and returned. A full class set is available. Wooden, not detailed, its use is primarily for male condom demonstration and practice.
Safer Sex Kit
This manipulative can be checked out and returned. One kit per class. The materials are not for distribution. Contains male and female/internal condoms, finger cots, dental dams, lubrication, fact cards, a wooden penis model, and a more detailed latex penis model that includes testicles.
Contraception Kit
This manipulative can be checked out and returned. One kit per class. The materials are not for distribution. Contains a diaphragm, a packet of daily birth control pills, the patch, the ring, an implant, an IUD and two-dimensional female pelvic model, emergency contraception, spermicide in various forms, and male and female condoms.
The T Word
Actress and trans advocate Laverne Cox presents an eye-opening documentary about seven brave transgender youth who are showing the world what it means to defy expectations and live their lives – and truth – as authentically as possible.
Recommended Lessons
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View list of Sexuality Materials Reviewed up to 2015 (pdf)
Contact us to submit a new material.
Substance Use
Curriculum
Recommended Lessons
Project Towards No Drug (TND) Abuse
This 299-page teacher’s manual comes along with a class set of student workbooks. Project TND focuses on three factors that predict tobacco, alcohol, and other drug use, violence-related behaviors, and other problem behaviors among youth, including: Motivation factors (i.e., students’ attitudes, beliefs, expectations, and desires regarding drug use); Skills (effective communication, social self-control, and coping skills); and Decision-making (i.e., how to make decisions that lead to health-promoting behaviors).
- Lesson 1: Active Listening
- Lesson 2: Stereotyping
- Lesson 3: Myths and Denials
- Lesson 4: Chemical Dependency
- Lesson 5: Talk Show
- Lesson 6: Stress, Health, & Goals
- Lesson 7: Tobacco Basketball and Use Cessation
- Lesson 8: Self Control
- Lesson 9: Marijuana Panel
- Lesson 10: Positive & Negative Thought & Behavior Loops
- Lesson 11: Perspectives
- Lesson 12: Decision-making and Commitment
Also, new information on E-Cigarettes and related products
Health Smart High School: Tobacco, Alcohol, & other Drug Prevention
This 243-page book includes sixteen lessons on tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs, as well as assessments, handouts, a glossary, and a DVD of digital resources. ETR’s Health Smart program gives youth the knowledge and skills to make healthy choices and establish life-long healthy behaviors.
- Lesson 1: Teens & Drug Use
- Lesson 3: Prescription & Over-the-Counter Drugs: Get the Facts
- Lesson 6: Alcohol: Get the Facts
This 90 min documentary DVD addresses different aspects of the disease of addiction. This film highlights personal accounts from addicts, their loved ones, and the nation’s leading drug and alcohol experts.
In this 18 min. DVD, viewers learn how consuming marijuana in edible form affects the body and brain differently than smoking it. This film gives an overview of the types of edibles and how using edible marijuana can lead to addiction and impact different aspects of a user’s life.
National Geographic: World’s Most Dangerous Drug
This 52 min. DVD from 2006 addresses the history and effects of methamphetamine on societies and individuals in the US and other countries.
Extended version sometimes available in its entirety online at nationalgeographic.com: View video.
PBS Frontline’s: Chasing Heroin: Investigating an American Crisis
This 114 min. DVD from 2016 places America’s heroin crisis in a fresh and provocative light — telling the stories of individual addicts, but also illuminating the epidemic’s years-in-the-making social context, deeply examining shifts in U.S. drug policy, and exploring what happens when addiction is treated like a public health issue, not a crime.
Stanford Medicine’s Tobacco Prevention Toolkit
The Tobacco Prevention Toolkit is a new, theory-based and evidence-informed educational resource created by educators and researchers aimed at preventing middle and high school students’ use of cigarettes, cigars/cigarillos, chew, hookah, and electronic cigarettes. This online toolkit contains a set of lessons focused on e-cigarettes and vapes, messages on nicotine addiction, information and resources concerning positive youth development, and school policies that provide information about school tobacco policies and tobacco control efforts.
Human Relations Media: Everything You Need to Know about Prescription & Over the Counter Drugs in 22 Minutes
This 22 min. DVD from 2012 dramatizes how prescription and over-the-counter drugs can be just as potent and addictive as illicit drugs like cocaine and heroin. It takes a close look at the do’s, don’ts, and dangers of these medicines including the potentially deadly impact of drugged driving. Students learn how abuse of OTC drugs can lead to addiction, overdose and even death. They also learn to read and heed warnings against mixing medicines together and that drugs should only be used by the person for whom they are prescribed.
This resource includes a digital versions of activities, handouts, and assessments. The DVD contains Spanish subtitles. View a trailer at HRMvideo.com.
Human Relations Media: Everything You Need to Know about Alcohol in 22 Minutes
This 22 min. DVD contains four very short films dealing with topics such as condom use, STI testing, and pregnancy.
All Scenarios USA sex education films were written by teens for teens, then were professionally produced and edited in 2008. They’ve won several awards and critical accolades, and many contain appearances by famous actors. Characters are diverse in ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.
Human Relations Media: All You Need to Know about Tobacco in 22 Minutes
This DVD illustrates the health effects of smoking through the dissemination of facts and interviews with smokers. This film shares the addictive effects of nicotine as well as highlights the marketing of the tobacco industry towards our youth.
Human Relations Media: Everything You Need to Know about Marijuana in 22 Minutes
In this 22 min. DVD, viewers learn the risks of marijuana use especially on the teenage brain. This film also gives an overview of the physical, mental, and legal consequences of marijuana use.
Human Relations Media: Marijuana and The Teenage Brain
This is a 23 min. DVD that informs students about the latest research on the effects of marijuana on the brain. Animated graphics clearly show how THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, hijacks the brain’s endocannabinoid system and harms the functioning of different parts of the brain associated with coordination, cognition and intelligence, and mental illness. Clinicians explain that it’s possible to become addicted to marijuana and that the risk of addiction is higher for teenagers because their brains are not yet fully developed. The author of a long-term study cites research that shows that people who started using marijuana as teens show an average loss of 8 points in IQ. Recovering marijuana addicts provide a human face to the effects of marijuana. It includes a curriculum binder and digital versions of activities, handouts, and assessments.
For questions regarding high school curriculum and resources please: Contact Us
Nutrition and Activity
Curriculum
Recommended Lessons
Health Smart High School: Nutrition & Physical Activity
ETR’s Health Smart program gives youth the knowledge and skills to make healthy choices and establish life-long healthy behaviors. This 253-page book includes sixteen lessons on nutrition and physical activity, as well as assessments, handouts, a glossary, and a DVD of digital resources.
Recommended Lessons:
- Lesson 1: Nutrition & Health
- Lesson 2: Guidelines for Healthy Eating
- Lesson 3: What’s on My Plate?
- Lesson 4: Reading Food Labels
- Lesson 5: Eating Healthy at Fast Food Restaurants
- Lesson 6: Physical Activity & Health
- Lesson 7: Guidelines for Physical Activity
- Lesson 8: Setting Healthy Eating & Physical Activity Goals
- Lesson 9: Tracking My Progress
- Lesson 10: Staying Safe During Physical Activity
- Lesson 11: Finding Accurate Information
- Lesson 12: Analyzing Influences on Eating & Physical Activity
- Lesson 13: Influences on Body Image
- Lesson 14: Managing Weight in Healthy Ways
- Lesson 15: Disordered Eating & Compulsive Exercising
Additional Resources
PBS’s Nourish
This 30 min. PBS special on DVD provides a big-picture view of the many ways that food connects to our environment, our health, and our communities. Most importantly, Nourish offers specific steps that individuals and groups can take to create a sustainable food future.
In addition to the half-hour PBS special, the Nourish DVD includes 11 short films, ranging from one to four minutes each:
“Edible Education” with Alice Waters
“Food Is Like Music” with Jamie Oliver
“Herbs” with Jamie Oliver
“No Free Lunch” with Michael Pollan
“Nourish Means” with 11 voices
“Supermarket Secrets” with Michael Pollan
“Try Something New” with Jamie Oliver
“Twinkie vs. Carrot” with Michael Pollan
“Urban Farms” with Bryant Terry
“Wake Up!” with Nadine Burke, MD
“Why Eat Local?” with Michael Pollan
Fed Up
Fed Up is a 92 min. documentary on DVD that is an examination of America’s obesity epidemic and the food industry’s role in aggravating it. Filmmaker Stephanie Soechtig and TV journalist Katie Couric lead viewers through an exposé that uncovers why- despite media attention, the public’s fascination with appearance, and government policies to combat childhood obesity-generations of American children will now live shorter lives than their parents did.
Food, INC.
In this 94 min. documentary on DVD, filmmaker Robert Kenner examines how large corporations have taken over all aspects of the food chain in the United States, from the farms where our food is grown to the chain restaurants and supermarkets where it’s sold. Narrated by author and activist Eric Schlosser, the film features interviews with average Americans about their dietary habits, commentary from food experts like Michael Pollan, and footage shot inside large-scale animal processing plants.
Choose My Plate
The food pyramid is gone and the plate has replaced it! Check this government website for numerous nutrition and physical fitness lesson plans and other materials for teachers.
Safety
Secondary Violence Lessons, Sexual Harassment Lessons Violence, Gun Violence Lessons
Curriculum
Recommended Lessons
Health Smart High School: Violence & Injury Prevention
ETR’s Health Smart program gives youth the knowledge and skills to make healthy choices and establish life-long healthy behaviors. This 343-page book includes eighteen lessons on violence and injury prevention, as well as assessments, handouts, a glossary, and a DVD of digital resources.
- Lesson 12: Understanding Injury & Risk
- Lesson 4: Preventing Cyberbullying
- Lesson 6: Preventing Hate Violence
- Lesson 7: Preventing Sexual Harassment
- Lesson 9: Preventing Suicide
- Lesson 13: Preventing Motor Vehicle Injuries
- Lesson 15: Responding to Emergencies
Additional Resources
Hands-Only CPR Training
San Francisco Unified High School students are trained in hands-only CPR by fire fighters and EMTs through the San Francisco Fire Department and American Heart Association.
Download: HCPR Lesson and Material
Additional
Secondary Pride Resources | Open the Door and Get Out and Explore | Get Out and Explore Flyer
Additional Resources
PBS’s Frontline: Growing Up Online
This 56 min. DVD from 2008 looks at the impact of the Internet on adolescence through the eyes of teens and their parents. The film takes viewers into the private worlds kids are creating online, from kids who are harassed and bullied, to kids whose only friends are on-line, to those kids who are celebrities on YouTube. FRONTLINE explores the complicated new lines being drawn between the real and virtual worlds for today’s children and for their parents.
Sometimes available in its entirety online at PBS.org: View video
PBS: Spillover: Zika, Ebola & Beyond
This 56 min. DVD from 2016 addresses some increasingly common viruses. Zika and Ebola–like rabies, dengue, and other killer viruses–reside in animals and spill over into humans. Today, spillover diseases are more common, and we are more vulnerable. Now, scientists are on the hunt for deadly diseases, hoping to stop them before they spill over and spread out of control.
Sometimes available in its entirety online at PBS.org: View video.
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