Accurate and credible information about health, health products, health services, equipment, and wellness is essential for positive physical and mental health outcomes. SHAPE America (2014) acknowledges the importance of an individual’s capacity to access information, resources, and services necessary to maintain and promote lifelong health. Comprehensive Health and Physical Education (CHPE) is uniquely positioned to instruct students in information literacy related to health and wellness. Information literacy is a set of skills that enables an individual to recognize when information is needed and to locate, evaluate, and effectively use information.  This practice brief focuses on how educators can leverage information literacy skill instruction in the CHPE classroom to enhance students’ health and wellness education.

Educators: In addition to teaching skills to encourage a healthy lifestyle, CHPE teachers are increasingly faced with guiding students in how to navigate conflicting information about health and physical education from various sources. The CHPE practices of communicating clearly and effectively, making decisions, and using technology tools responsibly provide opportunities to elevate and develop information literacy skills.

School Leaders: Schools play a critical role in helping students acquire healthy habits that stick with them for life. Students need information literacy skills to recognize and act on the most credible research in health and wellness, which are vital for students to engage in informed lifelong decision-making. School leaders, CHPE staff, and school library media specialists can collaborate to create consistent understandings of information literacy skills in CHPE contexts.

• Centering student inquiry in health and physical education instruction provides rich opportunities for communication, decision-making, and technology use to develop students’ information literacy skills. 
• School library media specialists are knowledgeable collaborators when integrating information literacy skills in CHPE instruction.
• The 2020 NJSLS-CHPE addresses content and skills that support the development of information literacy across all grade bands.
• Increased use of digital technology in health and physical education (e.g., fitness applications, games, heart rate monitors, activity trackers) requires explicit instruction on information literacy skills both in classroom and other health- and fitness-related settings.
• Effective information literacy instruction will assist students as they evaluate content generated by artificial intelligence (AI). Verifying factual information, understanding the sources of content, and recognizing the limitations of AI-generated text will inform students’ decision-making as AI becomes more prevalent in society. 

• Increased information literacy skill instruction assists in more equitable health outcomes by ensuring all students can navigate health systems, information, and practices.
• Ensured presentation and evaluation of health and wellness information in a variety of culturally responsive and socially inclusive contexts increase the likelihood of positive health outcomes and decision-making practices.

• Collaborate with a school library media specialist to curate health resources and instruct students on research practices, protocols, and methods, including the use of health-related databases and primary and secondary sources.
• Establish criteria/questions for resource evaluation to create consistent learning protocols related to information literacy skills.
• Encourage student inquiry and critical thinking by having students generate questions, engage in research using various research tools, assess source credibility, and identify supporting or conflicting evidence regarding health information sources and claims.
• Explicitly articulate to students when, where, and how you are utilizing information literacy skills during instruction to model behaviors and their applicability.

• What role do information literacy skills play in teaching students how to use digital technology tools to navigate online health information responsibly and support their understanding of fitness, nutrition, and overall well-being?
• What current lessons/units may be strengthened through the explicit instruction of information literacy skills?

• Is This Legit? Accessing Valid and Reliable Health Information from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (2021) provides a sample high school lesson plan that helps students identify and evaluate reputable, high-quality sources of health information.
• What is Health Literacy? from SHAPE America defines health literacy and skills that support health-related learning and knowledge application.

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