Essential Health Skills for Middle School

Essential Health Skills for Middle School provides the skills and information students need to make responsible decisions and promote a lifetime of health and wellness. This fourth edition features cutting-edge, contemporary health topics, such as vaping, opioids, social media, mindfulness, empathy and resilience, online communication, and COVID-19. Students will have the opportunity to practice their health skills in a variety of contexts, related to the subjects most applicable to their lives. Content and skills align to the National Health Education Standards.

Catherine A. Sanderson  is the Poler Family Professor of Psychology at Amherst College. She received a bachelor’s degree in psychology, with a specialization in Health and Development, from Stanford University, and received both master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology from Princeton University. Professor Sanderson’s research examines how personality and social variables influence health-related behaviors, such as safer sex and disordered eating. Her research also examines the development of persuasive messages and interventions to prevent unhealthy behavior and predictors of relationship satisfaction. This research has received grant funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Professor Sanderson has published more than 25 journal articles and book chapters; four college textbooks; high school and middle school health textbooks; and a trade book, The Positive Shift, which examines how mind-set influences happiness, health, and even how long people live. Her latest book, Why We Act: Turning Bystanders into Moral Rebels, examines why good people often stay silent or do nothing in the face of wrongdoing. In 2012, she was named one of the country’s top 300 professors by the Princeton Review.

Mark Zelman  is a Professor of Biology at Aurora University, Aurora, Illinois. He received a bachelor’s degree in biology from Rockford College. He received a PhD in microbiology and immunology from Loyola University of Chicago and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago. Dr. Zelman’s research focuses on prevention and control of infectious diseases, mechanisms of antibiotic resistance, and community factors affecting public health. He teaches science education courses for high school teachers. He has published articles on microbiology, infectious disease, autoimmune disease, and biotechnology, and he has written two college texts on human diseases and infection control. Dr. Zelman works with the West Africa AIDS Foundation in Ghana and other public health projects in the US and abroad. He is an officer of the Illinois State Academy of Sciences and Editor-in-Chief of the Academy’s scientific journal, Transactions.

Lindsay Armbruster  experiences, on a daily basis, the impact that optimism, self-efficacy, and persistence can have on a class, an individual, and on students’ health behaviors. As a result, her teaching focuses on strengths and possibilities and is highly influenced by the theories of skills-based health education and positive psychology. Lindsay is certified as both a K–12 Health Education teacher and K–12 Library Media Specialist in the state of New York. Lindsay has been teaching Health Education since 2004, ranging all grade levels—kindergarten through twelfth grade as well as graduate school—with most of her experience occurring at the middle school level. Lindsay received her bachelor’s degree in school and community health education from the State University of New York College at Brockport and her master’s degree in curriculum development and instructional technology from the University at Albany. Lindsay also earned a second master’s degree in Library Media at St. John Fisher University. She has won the New York State Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (NYSAHPERD) Health Teacher of the Year award and the Society of Health & Physical Educators (SHAPE) America Eastern District Health Teacher of the Year award. Lindsay is a frequent presenter at local, state, and regional conferences.

Mary McCarley  is the National Health Education Content Specialist. She taught health education for 14 years in Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools. As a teacher, she excelled at creating an engaging, student-centered learning environment with a focus on real-world learning and skills-based health education. Mary graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with an Exercise and Sports Science degree and East Carolina University with a Master of Arts in Education in Health Education. She is a National Board Certified Teacher in Health Education. In addition, Mary is the 2016 North Carolina High School Teacher of the Year for Health Education and the 2016 High School Southern District Teacher of the Year for the Advancement of Health Education. Mary presents at conferences and for school districts on various health education topics locally and nationally. She provides professional development and training for school districts to help teachers effectively implement a skills-based health education curriculum.