Northwestern University's medical school has launched a website featuring animated characters Olivia the Ovary and Timothy the Testis to teach reproductive health to children.
The site, called Reprotopia, features the dancing duo in animated videos that explain reproduction, aimed at children ages 10 to 14.
The videos use humor and fill a "large void" of health and reproductive lessons for children, according to a statement Northwestern released Monday.
The "A New You, That's Who" video series addresses puberty, male and female anatomy and menstruation, mostly using song. They are available for free at reprotopia.northwestern.edu for parents or teachers.
"Timothy and Olivia are a neat way for kids to de-sensationalize the words ovary and testis," Dr. Teresa Woodruff, director of the Oncofertility Consortium at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who helped create the series, stated in Monday's release. "If we can do that for these common terms, it will be easier for kids to access the information they need for their health as they get older. This removes the taboos to talk about it by giving the kids the terms early enough, so it doesn't sound 'dirty.'"
The video, tested at Northwestern's Center on Media and Human Development, "showed a huge effect," said Lisa Hurwitz, a doctoral student who assisted in the analysis.
Kids who watched the videos showed significant comprehension and retention of the material, according to the release. They scored 75 percent accuracy on a multiple choice test about reproductive health compared to 50 percent accuracy for kids who watched a different set of videos.
Eric Patrick, the executive producer and director of the videos and a professor of radio-television-film at Northwestern's School of Communication, recruited Parents' Choice Award-winning songwriter Robert Charde to compose the music. Patrick and Charde were animators on Nickelodeon children's program "Blues Clues."
"We wanted to make it a little tongue-in-cheek and not be too stoic," Patrick said. "It is silly to show dancing ovaries. It gives them a signifier that it's OK to laugh, even if it's embarrassing. They are laughing at the same time it's engaging them."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...estern-puberty-videos-met-20170918-story.html
