life Education Center
For 30 years, in collaboration with the Iroquois-Kankakee Regional Office of Education (I-KAN ROE), the Partnership has supported two mobile classrooms which deliver unique substance misuse prevention curriculums to teach students the skills needed to choose healthy lifestyles, support social and emotional development, and avoid the dangers caused by misusing alcohol and other dangerous substances, including prescription drugs.
Nearly 10,000 students in kindergarten through middle school from almost 50 public and private schools in Kankakee and Iroquois Counties participate in the Life Education Center programs every year.
The Life Education Center’s unique substance misuse prevention programs teach kids in Kankakee and Iroquois counties the skills they need to choose healthy lifestyles and avoid the dangers caused by abusing alcohol and other dangerous substances.
Kindergarten - 6th Grade
Wise High Curriculum
State-of-the-art technology, role playing and discussion are used in these two mobile classrooms to teach students about the human body and ways to keep physically and emotionally healthy. Skills needed to deal with peer pressure are also provided.
Electronic modules and TAM – a transparent anatomical mannequin – allows students to view the placement of their organs, the the body works and how chemical substances harm their function.
Fun and interesting audiovisual aids are incorporated into lessons. Karpet Kid – a game where children place plastic replicas of the body’s organs on a child that is laying on a carpet marked with the shape of a body – is among the favorites!
The LEC sponsors a Best Practice Contest for some 600 teachers. Monetary awards of $100, $50 ad $25 are awarded every year to teachers at each grade level who develop the most creative reinforcement activity for their students. Click here for the entry.
Email entry to [email protected] or mail your entry to:
Brenda Wetzel
Iroquois-Kankakee Regional office of Education
1 Stuart Drive
Kankakee, IL 60901
Every year, the LEC enlists the talents of its 5th and 6th grade students to assist in promoting its anti-substance misuse message. Incorporating the theme “Wise Highs…Choices You Can Live With”, students develop artwork that is used for publications on billboards throughout Kankakee and Iroquois Counties.
6th - 8th Grade
Too good for drugs
Too Good for Drugs is a comprehensive evidence-based classroom curriculum developed by the Mendez Foundation. The lessons in this program introduce and review a series of skills to prepare youth to make healthy choices and resist unhealthy behaviors in life. The student, school, family and community all play an important part in reinforcing the skills and concepts taught during the program.
Too Good for Drugs empowers teens to meet the challenges of middle school life fostering confidence and building resistance to substance abuse. Students set and reach more complex goals and, in the process, develop and practice stronger decision-making skills and effective-communication skills. Interactive games and activities create an experiential learning environment so students can learn and apply the skills in the classroom setting.
A public service announcement contest for 7th and 8th graders has been developed and winning entries produced and broadcast on WVLI/WRIV FM radio during the program’s community awareness campaigns in October and April.
