This course is built to satisfy three reviewers at once: your district, which must show that the state’s required health instruction is delivered; UC, which approves area G courses only if they are genuinely college-preparatory; and families, who need to know what their students are learning and what their rights are. This lesson maps the course against each.

The standards. The course is aligned to the California Health Education Content Standards for grades 9-12 (2008). Standard 1 is essential concepts; standards 2-8 are skills: analyzing influences, accessing valid information, interpersonal communication, decision making, goal setting, practicing health-enhancing behaviors, and health promotion. Each lesson names one primary standard and several secondary ones, and every unit cites an HE.1 concept standard and an SL.9-10 speaking and listening standard. Across the semester, the course reaches HE.1 in all six content areas — mental, emotional and social health (M); personal and community health (P); nutrition and physical activity (N); alcohol, tobacco and other drugs (A); injury prevention and safety (S); and growth, development and sexual health (G) — and every skills standard at least once. It does not cite every one of the 205 standards; no semester course can, and the table below shows where the weight falls.

The law. Four statutory requirements are built in: the California Healthy Youth Act (Unit 4), affirmative consent and sexual-violence prevention (Lesson 4.3), hands-only CPR (Lesson 3.2) and mental health instruction (Unit 1). The table shows where each is taught. If your district adds requirements — for example, a specific human trafficking curriculum or a local suicide-prevention program — add them to your planning notes and tell the course team.

Area G. UC reviewers look for analysis, not a lecture on behavior. The course earns area G through three features you should protect when you teach it. First, students read and interpret federal data (YRBS, NYTS, NCHS, CDC contraceptive-effectiveness figures) and must report numbers with their year and source. Second, students evaluate health claims in media and advertising against primary sources. Third, every unit ends in a researched advocacy product that moves through a plan, a peer-reviewed draft, a revised final and a presentation. If you are short of time, cut a formative block — not the data work, the evaluation of claims or the task stages.

What the course does not do. It does not certify students in CPR; a certified instructor must do that. It does not diagnose or treat; it teaches students how to find people who do. And it never requires a student to disclose personal or family health information.