High School Jeopardy

Introduction
Our community project has gone through some evolution. This project was inspired by seeing the lack of knowledge students at our local high school had over topics such as birth control, eating disorders, sexually transmitted diseases, unplanned pregnancies, relationship violence, substance abuse and the resources in our community. We concluded that the female students at this high school would benefit from a female student support group.

Due to some complications with the scheduling of CSU, Chico’s spring break and the high school’s spring break, and along with other blocked off dates due to activities and testing at the high school, we realized that we would not have enough time to have and plan a five to seven weekly support group. With the advice of our supervisor, we developed a new community project. Our new community project would still be to inform students about the topics mentioned above, but the format would be in a form of a game. It would be available to both males and females freshman students. We determined that we would meet with the freshman classes for one class period where we would convey the information to the students in a non-lecture traditional way, a jeopardy-like game.

Statement of Need
Informing students of these precautions is something that we remember being a problem from when we were in high school. The reason we made the previously stated topic our focus is because we have always had an interested in this area. With one of us being from minority culture, Mexican American and both of us being women, we knew the disadvantage and oppression the kids at this high school encounter. Coming across research saying that “one million teenage women become pregnant” (Anon, 1999, p 3) and “1 in 4 sexually active teens will acquire an STD” (Anon, 1999, p 3) each year, we knew this project would be useful with our population. Our supervisor readily agreed and made it clear that it is an issue in our high school community. Through day to day interaction with these students we observed a significant number of student who were pregnant and many more who did not really have the correct facts about these issues or had misconceptions about the facts.

Description of Intervention
We hosted a jeopardy-like game in the freshmen trimester classes which are the Health, Study Skills, and Keyboarding classes. We divided the class in three teams. The categories where relate to the topics above. For example one category was “STD’s” another was “Unhealthy Behaviors”. Each category had five questions having points of 100 to 500. The answers were read back in a complete sentence and contain sufficient information for the students to gain knowledge. To encourage and motivate the students we passed out candy to the students who answer the question correctly. At the end of the game we had bonus rounds, each team having a chance to earn an additional 200 point and a final round where they were able to bet as many point as they wanted. The winning team received chocolate bars. By doing this jeopardy-like game the students would gain valuable information while having fun.

Evaluation of the Intervention
We conducted this jeopardy-like game three different days to three different freshmen classes. The first day did not go that well. There was a lot of confusion with the parental permission slip and many of the students were not able to stay. After the students who were not allowed to stay left, we were left with 13 students to work with. This was a disappointment, but we did the best we could with what we had. After we finished the game with that group of students we hade them fill out an evaluation sheet with some questions that informed us on what they learned, if they learned anything, and rating the presentations affectedness. We found in those evaluations that the kids did not enjoy the activity. They said it was uninformative or did not even take the evaluation form serious at all. After talking with our supervisor and brainstorming we rethought our approach. We redid the whole game making every question and answer like the actual jeopardy game. The questions and categories applied to them and it was more organized. One suggestion from our first class was to show pictures of things. We found some pictures that applied to the STD questions and used those which seem to have had a more successful impact on the students. In addition to having questions that discussed how not to get pregnant, we also included information about how much it cost to raise just one child.

The evaluations from the last two classes we conducted the activity in were an absolute turn around from the first class. They all enjoyed the game and thought it was very informative. The last two classes were much more involved in the game and the participation improved about 85% compared to the participation from the first class. Some of the students made the comment in their evaluations that they wanted to see this activity again and that it was fun. The first class was a very good learning round for us and helped us to be successful in the other two classes. This project did what we had intended to do and that is to inform students about these particular important issues while implementing it in a fun rather than lecture type fashion.

Reflection
Regardless of the complications we had with out community project, the final project was a success. We were able to give very valuable information to the students and make them aware of the dangers. Incorporating this activity in every health class would be beneficial for the students and school. The students were not only able to learn new material but test themselves in what they already new. By clarifying the permission slip, the turn out of participants would increase and the efficiency of the activity would follow. If this activity were to be done again, we would like to see the student be informed on how to look for signs, this will make them more alert on how to help friends in trouble.

Reference
Anon. (1999). Teen sex and pregnancy. Facts in brief. Retrieved May 04, 2005, from: http://www.agi-usua.org/pubs/fb_teen_sex.html