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By Gail McCarthy
May 3, 2003
Local high school seniors praised a new program about alcohol education, which is now circulating among hundreds of college campuses.
Gloucester High School is the first high school to pilot the three-hour course, called "AlcoholEdu" created by the Newton-based company, Outside the Classroom.
High school health teacher Sue Ingram introduced the program to 100 students in her classes late last fall. This spring, science teacher Paul Ingram presented the course to another 75 students.
The teens study the material on a their own schedule at home on their computer, using an access code, which in the end will reveal whether the student completed the program. Students, who do not have a computer at home can access the program from any computer, whether in the library or elsewhere.
The course is completely online and includes a pre-test, audio-video lectures, interactive case studies, question-and-answer segments, surveys, and a final exam.
"I think the program is excellent," said Sue Ingram. "It was very well done. It couldn't help but appeal to most kids. Kids said it wasn't lecturing or moral. It was presented in a simple fashion, sometimes interactive with a little reading, a little listening so it tapped into all kinds of learning modes."
The program was donated to the high school by the company as a result of Entrepreneurs Foundation of New England. It's executive director, Terry Segal, is a Gloucester resident who suggested the high school here could be a good starting point. The foundation's mission, in part, is to work with local companies, assisting them in finding ways to give back to the community.
"Our purpose is to get emerging high tech companies to give back. We get them into corporate community service," said Segal.
This is the second year that Outside the Classroom has been on the market and is now on 300 campuses.
Colleges buy the program to educate students about alcohol and the growing incidence of binge drinking among teens. In some cases, it is required of college freshmen. Colleges using the program are diverse, including University of Connecticut, Villanova, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Duke, Tufts and Princeton. It is required by the second largest sorority in the country, Kappa Alpha Theta.
AlcoholEdu is used at colleges nationwide to confront the "culture of drinking" in higher education, including the alarming increase in binge drinking by underage students in recent years, said he said.
The program bases its instruction on interdisciplinary applications of alcohol to brain science, sociology, history and mathematics.
Outside The Classroom was founded by Brandon Busteed, a former Duke University student who became concerned about the drinking culture of students and lack of alternatives.
"So he decided to create an on-line program that didn't preach and felt basic education -- not scare tactics -- was the way to go," said David Copithorne, a program spokesman. "It provides practical information about blood alcohol level, dispelling myths and about alcohol itself. It doesn't talk down to the kids."
The program seeks to present information in a non-opinionated format about the medical and social effects of drinking, with the hope that the course will help students make more informed decisions.
Gloucester High teens who took the course believed that the program would be better suited to younger students because, by high school, most teens already have had many years of health education and peer pressure to drink alcohol. The local teens suggested it could be most helpful to students in the eighth-grade because many will take a drink in the summer before they start high school.
Senior Emily Maki said this program was different because it answered a lot of questions in the back of people's minds and dealt with "all those stupid myths."
"It could be good for sixth-graders because by high school many kids have already experimented," she said. "It's also a good lesson before college too because you spend a lot of money on drinking and it can become a habit."
A group of students interviewed in the high school library recently gave the program a grade of an A- and they liked the hands-on nature of the course.
"People say don't drink or smoke, but they don't say why. But this shows why because it shows what's happening to your brain," said senior Fanny Girard.
"I learned things I didn't learn before, like the parts of the brain it effects and what you can do and shouldn't do if you have been drinking," said senior Brad Chipperini.
He and the other students interviewed said they were surprised to learn that they should not take acetaminophen after drinking because of the potential for liver damage.
Junior Amanda Quince said it was the little things that caught her eye.
"It was fun and it was good to learn more about it," she said.
The students liked the scenarios presented to them in which they would punch in the names of their friends and choose what they would do in a particular situation.
The students said the program showed situations that teens actually go through, like what would they do if a girl friend under the influence of alcohol went into a room alone with a guy she did not know well. Another was what would they do if a friend got sick from drinking.
Company officials now are working on a program for students younger than college age.
A new partnership has developed between Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) and Outside the Classroom Inc. to create a program specifically for high school students.
"Education really does change how people behave," said Copithorne.
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