Alison Arnold

"Think It Over" is a teen pregnancy prevention program for at-risk students in the Future Pathways dropout prevention center at Central Campus. The program was designed to help prevent unplanned pregnancies for teens and help students gain a real understanding of the responsibilities associated with teenage parenthood. The "RealCare Baby" infant simulators will be used to show that caring for an infant can be difficult work. The simulators and curriculum, which comply with state standards for family consumer sciences, are programmed to require specific infant care from the students including feeding, diaper changing, burping, and rocking. As a baby simulator cries, the student must determine what type of care is needed. The response is recorded by software in the simulators that will report whether the type of care given was correct. The baby will interrupt the students' social lives and will wake them up in the middle of the night. In addition to the baby simulators, the program will also include the Empathy Belly which allows male and female students to experience what it is like to carry a child. Arnold's goal is to show the students first-hand what having a baby is really like and will not only benefit the students, but the community as a whole. Arnold lives in Des Moines.