Sorry that I haven’t been posting much…I’ve been busy finishing up my graduate journalism degree. I will try to start posting more regularly soon about a variety of topics, not just sex education. In the meantime, you can visit another site that I was working on, LoJo Connect.  The Web site describes the capstone project for my graduate journalism degree in New Media.  We explored how journalists and other media professionals can use locative media, or location-based technologies (such as GPS-enabled phones and online interactive maps), to enhance their narratives.

RH Reality Check recently announced the winner of its Fresh Focus Video Contest in which participants submitted videos about ways to make sex education more interesting in the future.  You can view my previous post about the call for entries and check out the winners.  Enjoy!

For my final project for my New Media class, I surveyed and interviewed members of the sex education community to learn more about them, including where they get information about this topic and how they communicate with others with similar interests. I hope you will read my sex education community report and let me know what you think.

Usually I’m posting news items to help you - the reader - learn more about sex education news…But now I’m hoping for your help. For a project for my New Media journalism class, I am interviewing people who are interested in sex education…The goal is to learn more about how members communicate with others interested in sex education issues, where they turn to for news about this topic and how the media can better cover sex education issues. I am hoping that you will be willing to help me out by completing the following short survey:

Sex Education Survey

Results will be anonymous and aggregated. Next Thursday, Dec. 13, I’ll post a full report with general themes and trends that emerge.

Thanks!
~Joyce

China launched its first major television campaign this week to promote condom use to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS, according to Reuters.

The article says China will have an estimated 50,000 new HIV infections in 2007, compared with 70,000 in 2005, according to a report by the State Council (Cabinet) and the United Nations last week. That means the country will have about 700,000 people living with HIV/AIDS this year, up from an earlier estimate of 650,000.

While the ad may appear timid compared to ones used elsewhere in the world, Chinese actor Pu Cunxin said it marked a breakthrough that sex was now able to be discussed publicly.

“That this appears on television is a very big advance,” he said. “But the question of sex and condoms is still taboo. Sex is not bad. It’s something that should be talked about.”

According to the article, condom use in China among vulnerable groups such as prostitutes and men who have sex with men remains low.

Watch one of the commercials, featuring Jackie Chan:

A nursing lecturer at Salford University in England will host the first live seminar on sexual health on virtual world Second Life next week, according to the Guardian.

“Over the last 12 months I’ve been looking at social networking sites as a way of getting through to young people. Far from just being a source of amusement for people, it offers a huge opportunity for education,” Barbara Hastings-Asatourian said.

What do you think of using newer technology to reach audiences for sex education?  I recently posted about using another form of new media, podcasting, as a way of drawing attention and educating others about this topic.

RH Reality Check is sponsoring Fresh Focus: a sex ed digital education contest. Entrants can make videos either 1) describing their sex education experiences or 2) describing how they would redesign sex ed curricula for the future. Prizes for winners include a $3,500 scholarship, $1,000 cash and a Nintendo Wii or other gadgets. The contest deadline is Dec. 31, 2007.

Next week, I’ll post an entry about how people interested in sex education communicate with others with similar interests, as well as how they get information about breaking news in sex education. I think this contest is an interesting way to try to engage people who are interested in this topic. The call-for-entries poses this question: “Why is Sex So Interesting and Sex Ed So Boring?” I think this also raises the issue of why sex education might not always get the visibility it deserves and how to better engage people in this topic. I think RH Reality Check is hoping this is one way to raise awareness and visibility for this topic. What do you think? What other tactics would you try to get people involved in this issue?

North Carolina, which currently has a mostly abstinence-focused sex education curriculum, is considering mandating comprehensive sex education from kindergarten to ninth grade, according to WRAL-TV.

The bill would allow abstinence-only programs to be taught up to the seventh grade and require that school systems allow parents to review all sexual-education materials before they are taught.

From seventh grade and on, students would be taught the following:

• that abstinence is “the only certain way to prevent unintended pregnancy” and “reduce the sexual transmission of diseases, including HIV/AIDS”
• about how sexually transmitted diseases are spread, the effectiveness of federal Food and Drug Administration-approved methods to reduce the risk of transmission and local resources for testing and treating STDs
• about the effectiveness and safety of FDA-approved contraceptive methods, including emergency contraception
• life skills for healthy behaviors and to avoid risky behaviors, such as alcohol and drug abuse, especially intravenous drug use

The article also mentions “Baby, Think It Over,” a lifelike doll that resembles a 3-month-old baby that some middle school students must take care of.

Have you ever had to care for one of these dolls in a health or sex education class? Do you think dealing with a constantly crying and needy doll helps deter kids from having sex and from teen pregnancy? Here’s a video of one girl’s experience with these realistic babies:

A forum about sex education in Florida’s St. Lucie County schools managed to garner several hundred attendees.

The local school superintendent recommended Get Real about AIDS, which includes discussion of sexually transmitted diseases, as well as both abstinence and contraception, to the school board in August.

School officials released a modified version of Get Real About AIDS last week in which they removed descriptions of sexual activities, hands-on demonstrations of condoms and an exercise where students would have been asked to purchase condoms. Despite those modifications, controversy over the curriculum has not diminished.

According to the Palm Beach Post article, the program was recommended in light of concerns that the health curriculum wasn’t doing enough to combat sexually transmitted diseases. St. Lucie County has Florida’s highest rate of HIV and AIDS cases among black residents, according to statistics the health department released last year.

To see how your state compares to others in AIDS/HIV rates, as well as other health care issues, you might want to check out the Kaiser Foundation’s state health facts Web site.