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  • CORE: Essential Health Skills for High School, 6th Edition

CORE: Essential Health Skills for High School, 6th Edition

  • The CORE offering includes the Essential Health Skills text, which covers mental health, nutrition and fitness, safety, substances, and social health.
  • Ideal for classes that teach the core health and wellness topics.
  • Delivers skills-based learning with activities and assessments aligned to the National Health Education Standards.

Title Overview

Title Overview

Essential Health Skills for High School provides the skills and information students need to make informed decisions and promote a lifetime of health and wellness. Students will have the opportunity to practice their health skills in a variety of contexts, related to the subjects most applicable to their lives. By studying content and skills that align to the National Health Education Standards, students will be empowered to advocate for every area of their health, now and in the future.

  • Districts that teach core health and wellness including mental health, nutrition and fitness, safety, substances, and social health can meet their standards with Essential Health Skills for High School.
  • Written by Health experts and award-winning SHAPE America Teachers of the Year, this new edition features updated content such as social determinants of health and dietary guidelines. Cutting-edge, contemporary health topics include vaping, opioid addiction, body positivity and compassion, and online communication and safety.
  • G-W Assessment offers pre-assessments; new application-level, scenario-based post-assessments; differentiated module exams; and new scenario-based question banks.
  • Teachers have access to an unparalleled wealth of instructor and student resources, including editable lesson plans and PowerPoint® presentations, skills-based and differentiated activities, and performance tasks with rubrics.
  • Handouts are provided in an editable, translatable format that meets accessibility guidelines, and the program boasts a wealth of resources already translated into Spanish.
  • Integrate with leading LMS platforms to easily save, organize, and share learning content with students.

Also available:

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Essential Health Skills for High School

Instructor Resources

Instructor Resources

Hit the ground running with G-W's Online Instructor Resources that save you time and make it easier to prepare for class, reinforce new concepts, and assess learning. Created by educators for educators, these complete teaching packages are ready to go and will instantly make a difference in your class. Best of all—Instructor Resources are free with qualified purchases!


  • Lesson Plans and Activities Experienced teachers have developed detailed lesson plans and creative activities to accompany the textbooks. There's no need to spend days recreating your courses—they have done it for you!

  • PowerPoint Presentations Editable slides for each chapter engage a variety of learning styles, improve student focus, encourage discussion, and provide visual impact.

  • Workbooks Creative workbook activities inspire students to review and apply concepts.

  • Interactive Content Additional interactive content including flash cards, animations, and interactive activities enhance the learning experience.

  • Assessments: The new cloud-based G-W Assessment platform allows you to create, customize, assign, and print prebuilt questions and tests. No more downloads, uploads, or imports needed! Integrate it with your LMS for autograded assignments, advanced reporting, and scores that flow into your gradebook.

Look Inside

Look Inside

The Look Inside is for preview purposes only. The format of the actual product may vary from the image shown.

Standards and Correlations

Standards and Correlations

About the Author

About the Author

Catherine Sanderson

is the Poler Family Professor of Psychology at Amherst College. She received a bachelor's degree in psychology, with a specialization in Health and Development, from Stanford University, and received both master's and doctoral degrees in psychology from Princeton University. Professor Sanderson's research examines how personality and social variables influence health-related behaviors. Her research also examines the development of persuasive messages and interventions to prevent unhealthy behavior and predictors of relationship satisfaction. This research has received grant funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Professor Sanderson has published more than 25 journal articles and book chapters; four college textbooks; high school and middle school health textbooks; and a trade book, The Positive Shift, which examines how mindset influences happiness, health, and even how long people live. Her latest book, Why We Act: Turning Bystanders into Moral Rebels, examines why good people often stay silent or do nothing in the face of wrongdoing. In 2012, she was named one of the country's top 300 professors by the Princeton Review.


Mark Zelman

is a Professor of Biology at Aurora University, Aurora, Illinois. He received a bachelor's degree in biology at Rockford College, with minors in chemistry and psychology. He received a PhD in microbiology and immunology at Loyola University of Chicago, where he studied the molecular and cellular mechanisms of autoimmune disease. During his postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago, he studied aspects of cell physiology pertaining to cell growth and cancer. Dr. Zelman supervises undergraduate research on streptococcal and staphylococcal infections, and mechanisms of antibiotic resistance. He teaches science education courses for high school teachers. He has published articles on microbiology, infectious disease, autoimmune disease, and biotechnology, and he has written two college texts on human diseases and infection control. Dr. Zelman works with public health projects. He is an officer of the Illinois State Academy of Sciences and Editor-in-Chief of the Academy's scientific journal, Transactions.


Diane Farthing

received her bachelor's degree and teaching credentials from Kent State University in Ohio and has been teaching health education for 38 years. In 2010, she became a National Board Certified Teacher. Diane's teaching career includes 16 years at a continuation high school and five years at the middle school level. Since 2004, she has been teaching health education and anatomy and physiology at Amador Valley High School in Pleasanton, California. She spent seven years as part of the Bay Area Physical Education-Health Subject Matter Project leadership team designing and delivering professional development institutes. In 2014, she took on the role of Health Program Director for the Health and Physical Education Collaborative (H-PEC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping teachers develop physical and health literacy in their students. Diane was a member of the CDE's Framework and Evaluation Criteria Committee and helped write the Health Education Curriculum Framework for California Public Schools. She is the 2019 California Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (CAHPERD) Health Teacher of the Year and the 2020 Western District Teacher of the Year.


Melanie Lynch

is an experienced teacher with more than 25 years in the classroom. She spent the first 21 years of her career specializing in teaching only health education. She now teaches health and physical education in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at North Allegheny Intermediate High School. She has served as Vice President of Health Education for SHAPE Pennsylvania for five years and served as their President in 2016. Also in 2016, SHAPE America named Melanie the National Health Education Teacher of the Year. Melanie's love of working with students and her creative, skills-based lesson ideas have taken her all over the country, where she has spoken to thousands of teachers. Melanie is grateful to work, learn, and grow with so many amazing teachers.


Melissa Munsell

has worked as an instructional specialist in the Physical Education and Health Department at North East Independent School District in San Antonio, Texas, and served as the K-12 Health Education Lead for the district. Melissa received a bachelor's degree in kinesiology from The University of Texas at Austin and is certified to teach Physical Education K-12 and Health Education 6-12, among other endorsements, in the state of Texas. She has 28 years of teaching and administrative experience, including six years teaching health education at the high school level. She has also served as vice president of the Health Division and General Division of the Texas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance (TAHPERD) and presents workshops and lectures on various health topics locally and statewide.


Course Content

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Course Content

What Educators Are Saying

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FAQs

Upon purchase, you will receive an email with a keycode to redeem in your Learning Management System (LMS). Students: log into your school’s LMS and access your course. You will then follow the directions to activate your subscription.