Diabetes affects many people around the world, making diabetes education so important. With the proper resources, you can learn help prevent diabetes, live with the disease and understand it better in others. Gaining valuable insight into the disease begins with educational activities like quizzes, podcasts and slideshows that teach about diabetes and related subjects.
Patient Education
The National Institutes of Health offers interactive slide-shows concerning various aspects of diabetes including eye complications, foot care, meal preparation, kidney failure and high-blood pressure. Designed to educate people with diabetes, they come in various forms. You can choose the interactive slideshow that asks questions, an automatic presentation or a text summary of the tutorial in a PDF file. The Interactive tutorials are the most in-depth, with narration, multiple subjects and the ability to back up, jump forward or replay a specific slide.
Podcasts and Video
The National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse's website offers a large collection of diabetes related podcasts. Podcasts are audio files you can listen to either on your computer or on the go with an mp3 player. The site offers over 30 podcasts from the National Institutes of Health specifically related to diabetes. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention offers the "We Can be Stronger than Diabetes" video podcast (vodcast) series, covering general information and helpful tips regarding diabetes.
Quizes
Quizzes related to diabetes are available online through the National Diabetes Information Clearinghouse's website. Available quizzes include a cholesterol quiz from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and a diabetic eye disease quiz from the National Eye Institute. The site also offers a Portion Distortion! quiz regarding how food portions are much larger today than in the past. The quiz also educates readers on how much exercise it takes to burn off these larger portions. While the quiz isn't specifically related to diabetes, the information within is very helpful to diabetics concerned with the food they eat.
School Activities
KidsHealth.org has an entire diabetes program available online for teachers in grades six through eight. The material features multiple articles to educate the students on diabetes and its different types. The plan includes discussion questions to get students actively thinking about diabetes and how it affects people. The lesson plan has two activities in Camp Diabetes and Pancreas on Strike. The first teaches students about the food and lifestyle changes brought on through diabetes by having them create an imaginary summer camp for diabetic children, focusing specifically on meals and activities offered at the camp. In Pancreas on Strike students learn the importance of the organ and what happens when it stops producing insulin. This exercise has students write an imaginary letter to the "Human Body Labor Board" after their pancreas submits a formal complaint. The student must explain in their letter what happens when the pancreas stops working and why they appreciate their pancreas and find its job important.
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