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Woodland Elementary District 50 in Gurnee celebrates award-winning health teachers

Three Woodland Elementary District 50 teachers were celebrated this week for a statewide award they received for improving the quality of health education.

Woodland Middle School health teachers Christine Murray, Joanna Wolk and Lenora Bedore tackled the curriculum upgrades before the 2014-15 academic season as part of a professional growth plan, Principal Scott Snyder said. It wound up that the educators' efforts were rewarded with a blue ribbon in a program jointly sponsored by the Illinois School Health Association and the Illinois Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance.

Joy Swoboda, superintendent at Gurnee-based District 50, congratulated the teachers at Tuesday night's school board meeting. The teachers were presented with flowers and a plaque before joining a group picture with a banner saluting the achievement.

"We are very humbled and very pleased to have you as leaders in our district," Swoboda told the three women.

In their effort to better educate students, Wolk, Murray and Bedore aligned lessons to meet standards set by national and state health organizations for middle school health classes. Children in grades six through eight attend Woodland Middle School in Gurnee.

Murray said more technology is being used in the middle school health classes.

"We wanted to utilize iPads," Murray said after the school board kudos, "so we wrote a grant and we were lucky to be awarded 15 iPads for our program."

She said the iPads allow use of the Book Creator application. Designed for children, it's allowed the students to create a human body manual and other books.

Wolk said a mock trial has become part of a unit on disease for the middle school students. The pupils try to convince a jury of their case after researching lifestyle diseases that are possible causes of a patient's death.

"We found different activities to really engage students so it's no longer just sitting with a book, but actually engaging them in becoming active participants in their learning," Wolk said.

Bedore said Woodland Middle School achieved the honor after a thorough evaluation process by blue ribbon representatives.

Four middle schools received blue ribbons for health program excellence from the statewide groups. The Woodland instructors and others were feted last week at an annual Illinois Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance state convention in St. Charles.

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