Sixth-grade students attending Skinner Middle School will have an opportunity to learn health promotion strategies by participating in the 9Health Fair In the Classroom on Wednesday, Dec. 3 from 7:15 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Students will interact with over 30 hands-on learning stations designed to make health issues realistic and meaningful. A popular station is the fatal vision goggles obstacle course designed to simulate the experience of how alcohol distorts judgment and vision. If the students truly were under the influence of an intoxicant, they experience how easy it would be to seriously hurt themselves or someone else.

Sixth-graders also will be able to see and touch a healthy pig’s lung and compare it to a lung damaged by tobacco smoke by manipulating the darkened tissue and feeling the holes created by the chemicals in a cigarette. These hands-on activities help middle school students understand the real-life consequences of health risk behaviors.

Skinner Middle School will host the 9Health Fair In the Classroom in partnership with Regis University’s School of Health Care Professions. Regis University’s nursing and physical therapy students have worked to plan and implement the fair with the help of the 9Health Fair In the Classroom staff and Skinner’s Eighth Grade Leadership Class. The 9Health Fair In the Classroom program is one strategy that Skinner Middle School is using to increase the health and safety of its students and decrease bullying, violence and the use of tobacco and other drugs. This program also exposes students in the Eighth-Grade Leadership Class to careers in the field of health.

Each year, more than 30,000 young people from 70 schools have participated in this free program, which enables students to learn more about their own health, safety issues, teen medical trends and lifestyle options available to them at a critical decision-making time of their lives. Organizations such as the Mental Health Association of Colorado and the Metro Denver Dental Society are working with Skinner Middle School and the 9Health Fair In the Classroom to provide materials and speakers for the students.

Skinner Middle School is located at 3435 W. 40th Ave. For information on Skinner’s health fair, contact Jeanette Sánchez at 303-433-8851.