Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra feature stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write a 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: New Jersey Tests High School Athletes for Steroids, 01/04/06
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june06/steroids_1-04.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What kinds of pressures/incentives do athletes face to make a team or to win?

2. What kinds of pressures do teens (males and females) face to look fit and muscular?

3. What are anabolic steroids and why do people take them?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. How is New Jersey's student drug testing program unique?

New Jersey became the first state in the nation to approve random steroid testing for high school athletes in all sports.

2. How widespread is steroid use among high school students in the country?

The number of high school students who admitted taking steroids has almost doubled in five years: 6.1 percent in 2003 up from 3.1 percent in 1998, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

3. How widespread is steroid use among high school students in New Jersey?

"While steroids are definitely in use in New Jersey high school sports -- mostly in football ... the use of steroids is not widespread at all levels of sport," he concluded. "Use is more prevalent at the schools where athletes have a better chance of using sports to get college scholarships."

The task force also reported that the use of steroids and supplements is greatest in large, suburban schools…

4. Which students will be tested? How many will be tested?

New Jersey plans to limit testing to a selection of student athletes who qualify for post-season play.

Of the nearly 230,000 students who participate in 31 different high school sports in New Jersey, about 10,000 take part in championship games.

Under the governor's plan, 500 -- or 5 percent -- of those students will be tested. .

5. What are the arguments in support of testing?

Students want cheaters to be caught and coaches want a level playing field.

"If you ask our players, all they would want is that the players across from them be under the same rules as we are. We don't want to play against men when we're boys," an unnamed student told the task force..

6. What are the arguments against testing?

Other critics point to privacy concerns. Deborah Jacobs, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey, said although she does not plan to challenge the plan in court, she considers it an invasion of privacy for students and their families.

"This really undercuts the rights and roles of the parent and interferes with family privacy," Jacobs told the New York Times. "It should be up to a family to decide what kind of exams a student should be subjected to."

7. What are the health risks associated with steroid use?

The adverse side affects from steroid use include the potential to stunt growth, cause irreversible liver damage, enlarge the heart muscles and cause violent mood swings.

In boys, steroids can reduce the size of the testicles, decrease sperm production and cause breasts to grow. In girls, steroids may disrupt the menstrual cycle and cause fertility problems.

 

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Last year congress held hearings on steroid use in professional baseball. Athletes in other sports have been banned from competition and stripped of awards after testing positive for steroid use. Has the use of steroids by professional athletes made steroid use by student athletes more or less attractive? Explain why or why not.

2. Students face pressure to excel in sports and to look fit and muscular. Write a list of tips for combating peer pressure.

3. Do you think random testing of student athletes is good or bad? Explain.

Write a 300-500 word essay on either of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.