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Communities isolated by limited infrastructure and access to health care can benefit from available technology. An example is in WV where commuting to parts of the state for extracurricular education or health care is difficult especially during inclement weather conditions. To address these challenges are technologies such as IVIN a distant education network of the state’s major university and MDTV the telehealth facility that enable doctors in remote areas to have specialty consultation from the 2 major tertiary health centers in the closest to traditional way possible. With these resources, a Health Sciences and Technology Academy (HSTA), an academic enrichment after school outreach program, developed a teleconference curriculum to foster continual education and interaction between faculty and high school students. The program targets student populations that are under-represented in the medical and science careers and encourages them to pursue these careers in college. Currently, over 800 students voluntarily participate on this extracurricular program and over 50 math, science, and health high school teachers supervise them. Several health sciences topics have been presented since 2000 through the teleconference mode without requiring the students to leave their communities. Presenters are both in and out of WV State. Examples of topics include “Forensic sciences,” “Recent advances in understanding the brain” and "Cancer" In an hour and half the presenter(s) stationed at the primary site share information with about 200 students gathered at different sites. Additionally, DVD/VHS copies of the telecast are available to the high school teachers upon request thus reaching more students. The post teleconference evaluations reveal that most students feel comfortable participating and over 80% learn ‘a lot’ from teleconferences. These results demonstrate that teleconference is an innovative technology to provide education and health consultation to people isolated by geographical location.

Stream: Technology in Community

Paper: Use of Technology to Bridge the Gap in Science Education and Health