Project-Based Health Class Assessments: Forget Tests

If you walked into my health classroom on test day a few years back, you'd see students filling in bubbles, labeling diagrams, and memorizing vocabulary lists of muscles I didn't know how to spell or to be honest, didn't even know. Period. The results? Endless reteaching, notes copied word for word, a handful of failing grades, and even a few cases of cheating. That assessment measured who could cram information, not who could actually use health skills in real life.

Since then I've learned; If students can just Google the answer, then I'm not truly assessing learning. Health education is about about equipping students with the tools and skills needed to thrive in the real world. (Thank Goodness, the real world doesn't require filling in multiple choice bubbles anymore.) Our assessments should reflect THAT. That's why I love the National Health Education Standards (NHES), they truly are focused on our students building skills and making informed decisions about their health.

In this post I'm going to walk you through a project I've been loving that takes the NHES Standard 8 to heart and really gets the students making change for not just them, but the school as a whole.

What We Should Be Assessing in Health Class

Instead of assessing facts alone, health education should measure skills such as:

• Decision-making

• Communication

• Goal-setting

• Advocacy

  
  

Advocacy is especially critical today. Standard 8 of the National Health Education Standards emphasizes it clearly: students will demonstrate the ability to advocate for personal, family, and community health.

Advocacy means identifying needs, creating an action plan, designing messages, and applying strategies to influence change.

When students learn to advocate- for themselves or others, they build the confidence to speak up, protect themselves, and contribute to healthier schools and communities.

A Project That Brings It All Together

The best example I have of an advocacy-based assessment is the Mission Better School project. Here’s how it works:

1. Students begin with a survey to identify the biggest health concerns at YOUR school.

2. They are grouped by interest and passion on a chosen topic. (Yes, the survey does that for you, AI is getting cool now y'all.)

3. A structured five-phase worksheet guides them from brainstorming to action... Whether that’s an awareness campaign, an event, or even a policy proposal.

Here's a closer look:

Phase One: This phase is all about naming the problems we see in our school, anything from excess screen time or energy drink use to bigger issues like cyberbullying, and examining how these impact our daily lives. Students will create a fake headline as if the issue were a news article and use a short story to illustrate the problem by externalizing it.

Phase Two: Students dig deeper to uncover the root causes of the problem using the 5 WHYs method. This is often eye-opening for teens, helping them see beyond the obvious surface reasons. Many students are surprised by what they discover in this step.

Phase Three: Students develop a solution or goal around the problem. Do they want to bring awareness, or suggest a policy change they think could help? It’s up to them. Teens become invested here because they feel ownership of solving a problem they picked. This phase also allows for a lot of creativity, which makes it exciting to see how they choose to address their issue.

Phase Four: This phase focuses on planning and executing their project, assigning roles, setting deadlines, creating ways to measure progress, and testing their ideas with other groups. Think of it as Project Management 101! This is where students actually build their project.

Phase Five: Teens reflect on whether their project reached its goals and desired outcomes. They present their projects to the class, which becomes a powerful opportunity to see just how engaged and invested they became in their work. Common Questions About Mission Better School Project:

How long does it take? This project takes my class around a week if we are working on it in class. However, it can be adjusted to be a much longer project, I've even seen it used as a semester long project.

How do you grade Project-Based Assessments like Mission Better School?

I like to use rubrics for all my project-based assessments. It gages not only their understanding of the topic but their teamwork skills, creative thinking, and problem solving.

Teachers love it because:

• Students select the issues that matter most to them.

• It aligns directly with NHES Standard 8.

• It builds real-world skills like teamwork, problem-solving, and advocacy.

• It adapts to any timeline, from a one-week project to a longer deep dive.

Grab it HERE

Our Role as Teachers: Guiding, Not Just Grading

When assessments shift toward skills, the teacher’s role shifts too. We become mentors, guides, and coaches. Rubrics can measure process as much as product: the planning, collaboration, creativity, and reflection students bring to the table.

And the payoff? Students take ownership of their learning. They buy in, because the work feels relevant beyond the classroom walls.

Rethinking Success in Health Class

If we want health education to stick, our assessments can’t stop at memorized facts. They need to measure what matters most: the skills students carry into life.

As the Society for Public Health Education reminds us, “Students are more likely to retain health knowledge when they see its relevance to their own lives.”

The next time you plan an assessment, consider this: are you measuring what students can recall…or what they can truly do?

Teach on, Abby