HealthWorks! Kids' Museum / 2006

The Health Care Foundation of North Mississippi is building the HealthWorks! Kids' Museum. As part of a two-year grant, the Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Mississippi Foundation has committed funds to help build the museum that teaches children about healthy behavior and health education. Many of the troubling health trends in our state are directly related to behavior and life choices. The HealthWorks! Museum will work to change that behavior, offering fun exhibits and demonstrations. The museum features interactive exhibits and "classroom" sessions modeled after popular game shows which will teach and reinforce health education in a fun and exciting way, with measurable benefits. It will be designed to help children in grades K-8 understand that the choices they make today will have an impact on the quality of their lives in the future.

"HealthWorks! is a proven health education model that will have a significant impact on the future health of this region. Currently, health education curriculum is not mandated in our classrooms. That fact, combined with a similar lack of emphasis on physical fitness in schools, seems to parallel the continued rise in children's health issues such as obesity and diabetes. HealthWorks! has great potential to positively affect children's cognitive thinking, to change their attitudes about health that will eventually lead to a change in behavior."

Dean Hancock, President
Health Care Foundation of North Mississippi

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