The goal of the kits' designers, Boring said, was not just to impart knowledge but effect behavioral change. However, the association has not yet done research on whether that has happened, she said. The curriculum is still new, and the logistics of doing research with schoolchildren is difficult, Boring said. Conrad said the curriculum features a quick and entertaining pace that tries to reach students with different learning styles. For example, teachers using the preschool kit can choose to have students learn a song about the heart, use a stethoscope, set up a ''pretend'' heart-healthy restaurant or make a collage of a hearthealthy dinner.
Kits contain posters, a reader, videos and audiotapes.
Lessons can be incorporated into science, reading, writing, mathematics, social studies, music or art classes. During Conrad's presentation at St. Francis, she poured gooey, caramel-colored pancake syrup from a pitcher into a plastic container to demonstrate how tar from cigarettes gets into smokers' lungs. She asked students to stand, then sit down when she had poured out the amount of tar a smoker of one pack a day would inhale in a year. For schools that can't afford the kits, funding has been available from several groups, Conrad said. They include the Pennsylvania Department of Health, Lehigh Valley area Kiwanis clubs, Binney and Smith, UGI Corp., Just Born Inc., and several private foundations, including the Trumbower Foundation the Shafer Foundation and the Muhlenberg Hospital Foundation.