The Discovery Room in the Medicines exhibition is a place where visitors of all ages can learn more about medicines by browsing through the library, collecting pamphlets and bibliographies, and using the microscopes and computers.

Medicines: The Inside Story brings the exciting field of pharmacology into the high-school classroom with an innovative educational program distributed nationwide on CD-ROM. This Teachers' Edition CD-ROM provides high-school science teachers with a full 8 to 10-week curriculum unit focused on the theme of medicines. Developed by teachers and scientists across the country, the curriculum unit presents a series of lesson plans that support and expand upon the content of the comprehensive museum exhibition that lies at the heart of the Medicines project.

Philosophy
In a society marked by rapid technological advances and an increasingly global marketplace, a high level of scientific literacy is critical for all citizens. Medicines: The Inside Story seeks to promote scientific literacy among high-school students through a series of practical, hands-on activities designed to bring real-world science into the classroom. The curriculum unit is philosophically based on the four goals outlined in the National Science Education Standards. Those goals state that all students should be able to:

• Use scientific principles and processes appropriately in making personal decisions.

• Experience the richness and excitement of knowing about and understanding the natural world.

• Increase their economic productivity.

• Engage intelligently in public discourse and debate about matters of scientific and technological concern.

The classroom activities on the Medicines CD-ROM enable students to meet all of these goals. Students will use scientific analysis to make informed personal decisions about medicines. They can investigate what happens to medicines inside the body, including how they get to the site of action, and how they work on the cellular and molecular level. They can learn about careers in the pharmaceutical sciences, experiencing first-hand what it's like to conduct research in modern laboratories. Students will also gain the knowledge and skills necessary to carry on intelligent debate and make informed decisions about public policy issues related to medicines.

Development
The Medicines curriculum unit was developed with the input of more than seventy-five teachers and scientists from across the United States, as well as with the professional guidance of organizations such as the National Science Teachers Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

During the summer of 1993, a group of teachers convened at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria, Virginia, to develop the preliminary concepts for the curriculum unit. Based on their research and the input of additional scientists and curriculum specialists, an outline for the curriculum unit was created. Fifteen development teachers turned the rough ideas from the outline into full-scale lesson plans, complete with extensive background information, detailed procedures for teachers and students, and comprehensive assessment and follow-up activities. Forty teachers from around Atlanta, Georgia, and Durham, North Carolina, were then chosen to take the curriculum back to their classrooms for field-testing in the fall of 1995. Their comments and suggestions, gleaned from their experiences with students, were incorporated into the final version of the CD-ROM, published in August of 1996.