Defeating cancer through education, prevention, and youth athletics.

Abstract

e22548 Background: Barriers to effective scientific learning exists for elementary students, particularly in socially and financially disadvantaged settings. Maintaining interest, concentration and focus can be difficult for children, particularly when confronted with complex material and multiple distractions. Methods: We implemented a scientific educational program for children attending an urban community center after-school program entailing tutoring stations conducted during a basketball practice. Five tutoring stations included human physiology, astronomy, geography, geology and cancer. Five children spend 3 minutes with tutors who are medical students or residents while five other children are on the basketball court going through drills with a coach. After 3 minutes the kids on the court and the kids being tutored switch places. The sequence is repeated until each child has rotated through each of the 5 tutoring stations and through each of the 5 basketball drills. After this, each child rotates through each tutoring station for one minute where they are quizzed on what they were taught and the end of practice scrimmage begins with a score based upon each team of fives’ performance on the quiz. Results: The method proved to be highly effective in the children’s ability to understand and retain scientific concepts. Within weeks nearly every child could list the planets of the solar system in order, calculate their pulse and explain its importance, list the most common symptoms of the most prevalent cancers, correctly identify continents, oceans, countries and states on maps and explain the origin of volcanos, earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis. Conclusions: This novel teaching method proved highly effective with children being able to maintain interest, focus and concentration in a setting where physical exertion is rapidly alternated with educational instruction. Parents and teachers commented that the kids learned more in 45 minutes with this method than in 2 weeks of conventional classroom teaching. The approach is widely applicable to students from diverse backgrounds.