Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE – Eighth-grade students at Presque Isle Middle School gained a better understanding of the various types of cancer that exist in today’s world thanks to a health project they completed prior to the end of the school year.
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
DISPLAYING THEIR YELLOW LIVESTRONG BRACELETS are eighth-graders at Presque Isle Middle School. The students received the bracelets for participating in a Livestrong at School contest, sponsored by the Livestrong Foundation, which was founded in 1997 by cancer survivor and champion cyclist Lance Armstrong. The students created tri-fold cancer brochures, and shared the information with their peers at the PIMS Cancer Information Clearinghouse.
The students each created a tri-fold brochure based on a cancer type, and then disseminated the information about the cancer to their peers.
“The library was turned into the Cancer Information Clearinghouse,” said health education teacher Dianne Leavitt. “The students spent a lot of time creating their brochures. They were not done on the computer; they were all done by hand. They had to do a rough draft, and everything had to be checked. They also had to do a bibliography, so there was a lot to it.
“Doing it by hand really made them work slower, it made it more concentrated work, and it was very, very detailed. They also had to do a verbal test of the warning signs,” she said. “That was a big part of it, too.”
The project coincided with a Livestrong at School contest Gail Hagelstein, library/media specialist at PIMS, learned about.
“The contest is sponsored by the Livestrong Foundation, and I immediately told Mrs. Leavitt about it,” said Hagelstein.
“The contest came at a perfect time,” said Leavitt. “It was right when we were doing this cancer awareness brochure.”
The Livestrong Foundation is a non-profit organization located in Austin, Texas. Founded in 1997 by cancer survivor and champion cyclist Lance Armstrong, the Foundation inspires and empowers people with cancer.
“The kids identify with celebrities, and Lance Armstrong is a person who has been right out there and is not ashamed to say that he had testicular cancer, and that he is promoting awareness of healthy living, healthy lifestyle, and early detection,” said Leavitt. “The kids really identified with that, and it went right along with what we were doing.”
The students were given a prepared list from which they chose their topic, and had two weeks to research and design their brochures. Each brochure featured an introduction, potential causes, treatment, warning signs, pictures, the title of the project, a bibliography, and the American Cancer Society’s Web site, www.cancer.org.
“I did my brochure on testicular cancer,” said eighth-grader Connor Shaw. “It includes information such as potential causes, treatment and warning signs. I learned that 6,000 to 8,000 men will be diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2008.
“I used the search engine, Clusty, and MedlinePlus to get my information,” he said. “[I picked my topic] for the fact that I’m a male and I thought it would be nice to know the warning signs just in case. I learned that early detection is good, and you can cure testicular cancer pretty easily if you catch it in the early stages.”
Eighth-grader Evan Waddell researched ovarian cancer.
“I chose it because I didn’t think anyone else would want to do that one,” he said, “and it’s kind of interesting because I didn’t know a lot about it.
“I learned that the estimated deaths from ovarian cancer this year is 15,520,” said Waddell. “Like a lot of cancers, if you detect it in the early stages, you can pretty much get rid of it with treatments like radiation and chemotherapy.”
Leavitt said she was pleased with how readily the students embraced the project.
“It was interesting to see how the kids pulled together their information and really shared back and forth in the classroom … ‘Hey, guess what I learned?’” she said. “Every day they shared new information with one another, and they became very comfortable talking about testicular, ovarian or breast cancer. The diseases are very serious, but the students were able to talk about them maturely and that was good to see.”
Hagelstein and Leavitt were both so proud of the students’ work that they wanted to share it with the Livestrong Foundation.
“We wanted them to know what students in northern Maine were doing to promote healthy living,” said Hagelstein, noting that 200 schools entered the contest.
Leavitt said she hoped her students took away from the project “a lifelong awareness of cancer.”
For participating in the contest, the Livestrong Foundation sent the students a box of yellow Livestrong bracelets, as well as posters, school and classroom resources.
Staff photo/Scott Mitchell Johnson
EIGHTH-GRADERS AT PRESQUE ISLE MIDDLE SCHOOL recently gained a better understanding of the various types of cancer that exist in today’s world as they created tri-fold brochures and shared the information with their peers. The project coincided with a Livestrong at School contest Gail Hagelstein, library/media specialist at PIMS, learned about. Displaying their brochures are, front row, from left: Kate Campbell, Courtney Colligan, JoLonna Gough and Samantha Buck. Back row: Hagelstein, Cole Richards, Evan Waddell, Matthew Sullivan, Connor Shaw and health education teacher Dianne Leavitt. For participating in the contest, the Livestrong Foundation, founded in 1997 by cancer survivor and champion cyclist Lance Armstrong, sent the students a box of yellow Livestrong bracelets, as well as posters, school and classroom resources.
