2004 Campus-Community Partnerships

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The Mind Works

Abstract:

Drug abuse is a serious problem confronting the underprivileged, minority youth in the community of Lennox. It especially threatens the successful advancement of its high school students. The Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA along with the Lennox School District s and Green Dot Public School s Animo Leadership Charter High School propose to establish a community partnership called The Mind Works that responds to the urgent need by these students for relevant, science-based education to improve their understanding of drugs and enhance their decision-making skills about drug use. UCLA researchers will collaborate with Animo s science teachers to develop an innovative Web-based drug education problem set called Morpheus. This project will integrate the concepts of human brain function presented in the existing Animo science curriculum with expert content from UCLA neuroscience drug researchers into 15 computerized drug abuse exercises that include the analysis of students problem solving performances. These challenging problems will assess students critical thinking skills, identify areas of strength and weakness in applying knowledge about drugs, and enable teachers to provide more effective, individualized drug abuse education. Through this partnership, a sustainable drug abuse education tool will be developed that can be widely implemented and reach up to 20,000 at-risk students.