Project CRESST: Enhancing Clinical Research Education for Secondary Students and Teachers was designed to support secondary teachers’ classroom instruction in areas related to designing, conducting, and interpreting research using a childhood health and wellness content framework.  This curriculum includes instructional lessons and student activities designed to assist teachers in their use of inquiry-based instructional approaches to deliver research and health-related content and skills.

The CRESST curriculum integrates content on research literacy content with childhood-health and wellness topics that is delivered inquiry-based instructional strategies.  The curriculum was developed by a team of exemplary middle and high school science teachers, and reviewed by K-12 professionals and university faculty with significant expertise in lesson topics and the instructional approach, in an effort to provide high-quality curricular tools that promote inquiry-based teaching.  The curriculum is aligned with the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) for Science (2010), Health (2015) and Physical Education (2015) as well as the Next Generation Science Standards (2013) and the National Health (2007) and Physical Education Standards (2013).  The curriculum is designed to enhance students’ research literacy knowledge and skills as described in the state and national standards.  Matrices that link each lesson to the state and national standards are provided in the appendices (see Appendices).

The curriculum is organized into four main units that mirror steps in the research process: 

• The Basics of Research
• Information Gathering and Synthesis
• Ethical Issues in Clinical Research
• Collecting and Analyzing Data

These units were developed so that they can be used in their entirety, or teachers can select stand-alone lessons to target specific content areas or skills.  The lessons are accompanied by ideas for how to extend or differentiate the strategies for varied groups of students and to encourage cross-curricular collaboration with colleagues who teach other subject areas.  Two short videos were developed to accompany the lessons.  Clinical Research: Why Does It Matter to Me? introduces students to the concept of clinical research and what it means to be a research participant; CRESST Kids and Health: From Classroom to Community – How Research Can Improve Our Health explores how clinical research can be used to address health issues prevalent in the local community.  A video guide for classroom suggestions and accompanying CRESST lessons can be found in the appendix.

In addition to engaging students in the conduct of research, the CRESST curriculum also strives to promote general health and wellness knowledge among adolescent learners.  According to the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth, roughly one out of every four students between the ages of 10 and 17 is obese. Statistics collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that the rate of childhood obesity has more than tripled among adolescents aged 12-19 since the late 1970s and early 1980s, from 5.0% to 20.5% in 2011-2012.2  Consequently, similar to the goals of clinical research studies in childhood health and wellness, the overarching goal of the CRESST curriculum is to engage students and teachers in learning about a significant public health issue through an inquiry-based instructional approach.  Through this process, we hope that teachers, students, families, and community members develop an appreciation for the important role clinical research plays in improving the human condition.

Project CRESST was supported by the Office of The Director, National Institutes of Health, under award number R25 OD010984.  The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.