What started as an intervention to dispel misinformation and spread science based information has developed into an effort to disseminate important health education. We cannot underestimate the role that our youth can play in spreading important information. We must engage with the community, to amplify the voices of our youth, and encourage them to be well-informed public health advocates. Further, recognizing each community’s potential towards curbing public health crises.
- To build K-12 student awareness about important public health topics.
- To promote public health action and increase health literacy among K-12th grade students.
- To increase engagement between K-12 students and health care professionals.
- To develop a pipeline of health educators from diverse backgrounds.
- To implement a “teach the teacher” model of health education that can be scaled locally, nationally, and internationally.
Therefore, we have created our public health courses for elementary to high school level students.
Course
We offer our curriculums to early elementary, elementary, middle, and high school levels. Each lesson is presented by trained instructors and consists of a 30-minute lecture with an additional 10-15 minutes for questions and answers. We provide worksheets, as well as a digital workbook, for students and teachers.
The HEAT Corps team regularly updates our curriculum to accurately reflect public health guidelines.
Volunteers
The Johns Hopkins HEAT Corps recruits volunteer instructors from across the Hopkins student body and at any training level (undergraduate and graduate professional students, and graduate medical education trainees).
JHU SOURCE, the Johns Hopkins community engagement and service-learning center for the health professional schools, promotes the HEAT Corps program, recruits and trainings students across the School of Medicine, Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the School of Nursing to become instructors. JHU SOURCE’s work is a critical component of the university’s commitment to strengthening community engagement.
Johns Hopkins HEAT Corps is a unique opportunity for the Hopkins student body to develop health education and teaching skills and support youth in their understanding of important public health topics.
As a HEAT Corps volunteer, you will lead conversations about how youth can make a difference by modeling social distancing, handwashing, and mask wearing. Additional benefits of the program include:
- increased engagement between K-12 youth and health care professionals
- development of a pipeline of health educators from diverse backgrounds
- implementation of a “teach the teacher” model of health education that can be scaled locally and/or nationally
- training and guidance from a team of Johns Hopkins faculty and staff.
We invite volunteers to become a part of an exciting national initiative! To learn more about the volunteer recruitment process, email [email protected]