Health Smart Virginia
Suicide Prevention - Finding the Words
Acknowledge, Care, Tell! Freshmen learn how to ACT to help a friend demonstrating warning signs for depression and suicide in a carefully scaffolded, scripted lesson. Scholars also learn positive coping skills, information about support...
Health Smart Virginia
What Is Mindfulness?
Stop. Breathe. Think. A richly detailed lesson on mindfulness introduces freshmen to meditation as a coping strategy to deal with stress.
Health Smart Virginia
Face of Mental Illness
To develop an understanding of the stigma surrounding mental health problems and the impact stigma and discrimination have on those who would seek help, groups investigate the symptoms of and risk factors associated with eight different...
Health Smart Virginia
Surviving High School Awareness Campaign
To demonstrate what they have learned in the Health Smart unit, sophomores design a resource for incoming ninth-graders that includes what they consider the most important information they gleaned from one of the eight topics studied.Â
Health Smart Virginia
Shark Tank - Mental Illnesses
Young entrepreneurs research and develop a Shark Tank-style pitch for a solution to help people who have a mental illness. After the presentations, research groups complete a rubric for each product and vote for the one product they feel...
Health Smart Virginia
Mental Health Journals
Eight prompts, designed to accompany the Health Smart series of lessons, provide high schoolers an opportunity to reflect on and learn from the issues raised by the various activities.
Health Smart Virginia
Building Self-Esteem and Self-Image
The ninth lesson in the Health Smart series is designed to get high schoolers to understand the factors that make them feel the way they do about themselves, their bodies, and their self-worth. Pupils watch a video about teens and body...
Health Smart Virginia
Suicide Prevention: Finding the Words
Provide young people with the information they need to identify the warning signs for depression and the risk factors for suicide. The instructional activity helps high schoolers learn positive coping skills, role-play how to support...
Health Smart Virginia
Fitting In and Setting Healthy Boundaries
Saying "No" isn't easy. Setting healthy boundaries and sticking to them takes practice. A series of exercises enables sophomores to practice these skills and reflect on the difference between fitting in and belonging.
Health Smart Virginia
How the Namuhs Learned to be Content with Who They Are
The Namuhs have a lot to teach humans how idealized images presented in advertising can impact self-perception and self-worth. After brainstorming 10 traits the media sets as the perfect body, class members read a short story about the...
Health Smart Virginia
Walk A Mile in Their Shoes
After watching a presentation that describes the difference between sympathy and empathy, class members fill out an empathy shoe organizer sharing 10 facts about themselves that others may not know. The goal is to create a more accepting...
Health Smart Virginia
Face of Mental Illness
There are a lot of myths and misinformation out there about mental illness. Help set the record straight with a resource that debunks the falsehoods and provides high schoolers with accurate and important information about the various...
Health Smart Virginia
Mental Health/Social Emotional Skills
Looking for social-emotional resources? Check out this seven-page packet that includes activity and lesson ideas, as well as links to information resources that support the social and emotional development of tenth graders.
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
A Student Exploration of the Global Impacts of Climate Change on Human Health
Small efforts can have global impacts. Learners use data to analyze public health impacts on climate change. They read articles that present relative data about climate change and use the data to make conclusions about the impact on...
Nemours KidsHealth
Suicide Prevention: Grades 6-8
Suicide prevention—a heavy topic but an important one. Over two lessons, pupils gain knowledge about suicide, particularly in teens, and how to advocate for a friend who feels suicidal or depressed. After researching the topic, scholars...
Nemours KidsHealth
Stress: Grades 6-8
Two lessons take a close look at stress. In lesson one, scholars identify common stressors and examine stress management strategies. Lesson two challenges pupils to keep a stress log for four weeks to aid in their personal journey of...
Nemours KidsHealth
Depression: Grades 6-8
Over two lessons, scholars examine depression—what it is, signs of it, and ways to cope. Through discussion, reading articles, writing a resource, and completing worksheets, participants make their way through the learning process,...
Nemours KidsHealth
Suicide Prevention: Grades 9-12
The teenage years are tough. Internal and external pressures lead 1 in 15 high schoolers to attempt suicide. Two activities focusing on suicide prevention provide class members with information about when and how to get help for...
Missouri Department of Elementary
Putting on Armor
Middle schoolers learn how to protect themselves from risky behaviors with a lesson that has them role play several scenarios and demonstrate ways that they might do to stay safe. Class members then use what they have learned to build a...
Just Health Action
What Makes a Community Healthy?
Young people have an opportunity to make it a beautiful day in their neighborhoods with an activity that asks them to identify what is healthy and unhealthy in their community and develop some ideas about what they can do to fix the...
Indigo Daya
Living With Difficult Emotions Self-Help Booklet
Anger, Sadness, Shame, Fear. A self-help booklet offers insight into how to manage these emotions. Included is information about helpful and unhelpful responses to these emotions, as well as worksheets that ask responders to reflect on...
University of California
re:Write Journaling as Healing
Sometimes a person needs an ear unattached to a mouth, a place to vent or clarify emotions. Journals are a great way to offload or gain insight into mixed emotions. The trick is to find a starting point. This list of 30 journal prompts,...
Missouri Department of Elementary
Juggling New Opportunities
Life is like trying to juggle three tennis balls! That's the big idea in a lesson that asks freshmen to consider that sometimes juggling the areas of their lives (social/emotion, academic, and career) runs smoothly and sometimes not so...
California Department of Education
On Tenterhooks: Analyzing the Etiology of Adolescent Anxiety
Are the joys of childhood really that joyful? Readers take a look at adolescent and young adult anxiety. Activities include close reading of articles and a self-reflection of scholars' own fears and anxiety. Learners then create a deck...