Development of a genetics education workshop curriculum for native American college and university students

The long-term goal of Genetic Education for Native Americans (GENA), a proj ect funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), is to p rovide a balance of scientific and cultural information about genetics and genetic research to Native Americans and thereby to improve informed decisi on making. The project provides culturally sensitive education about geneti c research to Native American medical students and college and university s tudents. Curriculum development included focus groups, extensive review of available curricula, and collection of information about career opportuniti es in genetics. Special attention was focused on genetic research to identi fy key concepts, instructional methods, and issues that are potentially tro ublesome or sensitive for Native Americans. Content on genetic research and careers in genetics was adapted from a wide variety of sources for use in the curriculum. The resulting GENA curriculum is based on 24 objectives arr anged into modules customized for selected science-related conference parti cipants. The curriculum was pretested with Native American students, medica l and general university, health care professionals, and basic scientists. Implementation of the curriculum is ongoing. This article describes the dev elopment and pretesting of the genetics curriculum for the project with the expectation that the curriculum will be useful for genetics educators work ing in diverse settings.