Reyna Lab 2011
Students from Valerie Reyna’s Laboratory for Rational Decision Making have been working in collaboration with New Roots Charter School in Ithaca as well as Cooperative Extension offices in New York City and Broome County to offer innovative curricula to teens.
The goal of the project is to reduce adolescent risk taking by providing effective interventions in the areas of sexual health as well as nutrition and fitness, while also gathering research data to improve the interventions. By working with Cornell Cooperative Extension, the team is assessing how best to move this program beyond the laboratory team and into the community.
The project is proving rewarding, not only for the youth who are taking the classes, but for the Cornell students involved in the research and teaching.
“Teaching health education to teenagers has also helped cement my interest in pursuing adolescent medicine as a career,” said Claire Lyons, ’12. Graduate student Anna Kharmats added, “the students [at New Roots] inspired me to apply to the New York City Teaching fellowship program to which I have been accepted."
Read more in this newsletter the students created about their activities at New Roots.