To the editor:

I am an eighth-grade student at Scarborough Middle School. I have participated in health classes since sixth grade. Most middle school students describe health class as “gross,” and “stupid.”

This is not the case.

Students value their health experience. I went into my first day of health class thinking it would be the worst class I had that semester. On the contrary, it became one of my favorites, not because the teacher, Mrs. Turner, is kind and understanding, although that helped too, but mainly because I learned.

I learned about how harmful STDs are and the science behind underage drinking laws. By the time we attend high school, and even toward the end of eighth grade, we are being pressured into dangerous activities.

The opportune time for us to learn about the repercussions of these dangerous activities, both legal and to our health, is in middle school. If the school department cuts middle school health programs and we aren’t blessed with parents who will share this knowledge with us, we won’t learn the repercussions of our actions until it may be too late.

How will we avoid getting ourselves into a risky situation, with knowledge about why it is risky and with tools for getting out of the situation safely? Consider hearing what we value about our educational experience.

I propose that we search for other ways to save money. In March 2008 school year, the middle school conducted an experiment called “Save the Polar Bears.”

In this experiment, we turned off half of the lights in all of the classrooms, and all of the lights when the classrooms were not in use. Over the course of one month, the middle school alone saved 5,700 kilowatt-hours which is a financial savings of $2,100. Over an entire school year, that could be a savings of $19,000.

That is just for the middle school. If we did this for all of the schools, we could be saving a lot of money.

Emma Cooper

Scarborough