UPDATE: Barcelon just sent along this photo from Atlanta.

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Judy Barcelon, the lead teacher of Piner’s Health and Science Investigation pathway, is back from Atlanta where she spent a week working at a program with the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

Barcelon was one of eight teachers selected from around the nation to participate in the Science Ambassador Program hosted by the National Science Foundation grant for eight teachers.

“We worked at the CDC for five days hearing from public health scientists what projects they are working on, all of the career opportunities available in public health in addition to how public health works to deduce the cause of an outbreak and some of the studies they are currently doing especially with regards to disparity among health status of different groups,” Barcelon wrote me in an email.

“Our basic task was to align with one of  the four topics the scientists presented and create lesson plans to publish on the internet that combine national and state content standards with the scientific process and topics used in everyday public health issues,” she wrote. “One of their goals is to have science teachers spread the word about the variety of jobs available in the public health sector…and from what I see, infectious disease will always be an employable future.”

Barcelon focused on obesity and water contamination during her work at the CDC.

The program Barcelon leads at Piner has students studying diseases, mastering their medical terminology and then heading out for internships at local medical centers and doctors office, according to Barcelon.

Sixty Piner students have signed up to start the program in the fall.

To read a prior blog post on Barcelon’s trip to Atlanta, click here: http://bit.ly/cX3EfG