The mission of the John and Janice Fisher Institute for Wellness and Gerontology is to teach, promote, investigate, and evaluate health and well-being throughout the life span. This is accomplished through organized interdisciplinary interaction with other disciplines, departments, and organizations with related academic programs, research agendas, and service mandates.

They're all featured in a winning short video produced by Ball State graduate students on the Learning Well Resources Team at the Fisher Institute for Wellness and Gerontology.

The six-student Ball State team won the American Public Health Association's 2007 Viral Video Contest held in conjunction with National Public Health Week April 2-7. Viral videos are clips shared by e-mail, instant messaging, blogs or media Web sites like YouTube.

The team's video — targeted for K-12 students — uses a humorous approach to make its point: stop the spread of germs by using commonsense health precautions.

"It was interesting how they used their different talents and skills to create the video," said Cathy Whaley, project coordinator for the School Wellness Initiative.

Crystal Nguyen of Moreno Valley, Calif., started by creating a storyboard and script and then pitched the idea to her teammates: David Bustamante of Highland; Seok Won Jin of South Korea; Caroline Reinhart of Ann Arbor, Mich.; Nathan Taylor, Champaign, Ill.; and Meghan Lambourne of Cadillac, Mich.

Lambourne provided the voiceover, and Bustamante starred as the Bubble Fairy.

"When the opportunity came to us, it was such a fun project to do," Nguyen said. "It was a lot of teamwork. Everyone found their own niche."

The winning video can be viewed at www.nphw.org/2007/pg_viralvideo.htm. It also will be featured on the American Public Health Association's Get Ready for Flu Web site at www.getreadyforflu.org. 

"We were delighted our students were able to gain national exposure for this project," Whaley said. "It's an added bonus that the video will be on the Get Ready Web site."

The Learning Well Resources Team is a part of the School Wellness Initiative funded by the Ball Brothers Foundation. It was created to support Delaware County schools by researching and distributing school wellness resources and training programs and to create a coordinated and comprehensive school wellness center.

For more information, contact Whaley at (765) 285-5846 or cdwhaley@bsu.edu.

By Kim Jackson

The WELCOA Project is a collaborative writing effort between the Wellness Council of America (WELCOA) and the Fisher Institute of Wellness and Gerontology at Ball State University. 

Graduate students are engaged in the process of researching, writing, editing, and finalizing text on a number of topics that are ultimately incorporated into a variety of WELCOA consumer-based publications. The Project is made up of select graduate assistants within the Institute, and a supervisor who oversees the research and writing process as well as each writer's progress.

This web site documents the process students go through to develop documents related to their assigned topics. Click on the topic list links on the right to access progress reports for the most recently developed articles.