Health Quests

Overview
In the activity, students visit a Web site that provides a personal health-risk assessment based on information supplied by the user. After taking the assessment, students identify risk factors within their control and steps they can take to reduce these risks. They then develop a plan of action for making changes in necessary areas and return to the Web site at a later date to reassess their relative level of health.

Objectives

• To use an on-line health-risk assessment to identify personal health risk factors in areas such as safety, nutrition, fitness, stress, diseases, weight control, and immunizations.
• To devise a plan for making changes to habits and behaviors that would help reduce these risks.

Getting Started
Discuss with students the relationship between the terms cause and effect, asking them to provide examples of cause-effect relationships. Explain that causes are conditions or events that lead to other events, known as effects. Tell students that many situations and events in life exist in a cause-and-effect relationship to each other. Illustrate the point by writing the following phrases on the chalkboard with a horizontal arrow pointing from the first to the second: "driving over the speed limit" and "accident." Ask students to identify other possible causes that lead to the same effect. Note that, like driving over the speed limit, many of our behaviors and habits can result in negative effects on our health.

Invite students to log on to the Web site. Allow time for them to read the introduction provided, making sure that each student creates a fictitious username and password as indicated in the instructions. Students should protect their privacy by not using their real names. Encourage students to make a note in their private Health Journals of the names or phrases used so that they may refer back to their health assessment at some later date.

Classroom Follow-up
Have students return to the site after several weeks to revise their health assessment data based on changes they have made. Ask them to write a brief passage in their private Health Journals identifying areas in which their ratings have changed for the better and offering explanations for the changes.