Teach-It-Yourself Curriculum
Welcome Educators! As part of Oregon’s organ, eye, and tissue donation education requirement (ORS 336.474), Cascade Life Alliance and Donate Life Northwest have developed a teacher-led approach that makes it easy to integrate this education requirement into your existing health curriculum. The Teach-It-Yourself (TIY) resources provide everything you need to confidently deliver this important health lesson and meet the new health education standard (HS.WHP.6). By empowering health teachers to deliver this education directly, we can ensure all students across Oregon receive consistent and equitable instruction, allowing this important topic to reach far more students than would be possible through individual teacher requests and community presenters alone.
Your Choice, Their Chance Donation Education
Teach-It-Yourself Kit downloads
This lesson plan includes everything you need for a 45 minute class presentation:
We welcome all educators to use this curriculum, no matter their location or subject.
Teacher Training & Support
We want to make teaching organ, eye, and tissue donation as easy and comfortable as possible. We know that many teachers may have little or no previous knowledge or experience with donation—and that’s okay. You do not need to be an expert in organ, eye, and tissue donation to teach this lesson. The Your Choice, Their Chance Teach-It-Yourself curriculum was designed to give you the information, tools, and guidance you need to confidently bring this education into your classroom.
The Teach-the-Teacher Training provides background on organ, eye, and tissue donation, walks you through the curriculum, and offers helpful information for answering common student questions. The Teach-It-Yourself Presentation Walkthrough takes you directly through the classroom slides, with guidance and talking points to help you prepare to present the lesson to your students.
You can watch either recording on your own time and come back to them whenever you need a refresher. And you don’t have to do this alone—we are always available to answer questions, provide additional resources, or offer support as you prepare to teach the curriculum.
Teach-the-Teacher Training
Teach-It-Yourself Presentation Walkthrough
Need Additional Support?
We’re here to help! We offer group or one-on-one training and support, either in person or virtually, based on what works best for you. Just send us an email and we’ll be happy to schedule time to answer questions, walk through the curriculum, or provide whatever support you need to feel comfortable bringing the lesson into your classroom.
Guest Speakers
To support the transition to teacher-led organ, eye, and tissue donation education in Oregon health classes, we’ve provided our easy to follow Teach It Yourself (TIY) curriculum, with training and support available whenever needed. As part of this new model, we also can provide a Storyteller Volunteer to come into your class and share their personal experiences with donation or transplantation. Storyteller Volunteers are available upon request, and should be provided with 15-20 minutes of time per class to share their story and answer student questions.
For Washington schools, non-health classes, health career programs, biology or anatomy classes, driver education programs, and other educational settings that fall outside of Oregon’s health education requirement, guest-speaker-led full presentations can still be requested. To request a guest-speaker-led presentation or Storyteller Volunteer, please complete the Donation Education Request Form.
We are very excited to support your efforts in bringing organ, eye, and tissue donation education to your classroom. If you have any questions or need support with this lesson plan/curriculum, please contact us at CLAOutreach@ohsu.edu.
Resources
CLA Educators & Community Outreach
CLA Race & Organ Donation
DLNW Student Resource Page
Donate Life Northwest
Oregon Dept. of Motor Vehicles (DMV)
Solvita (Tissue Donation)
Student Organ Donation Advocates (SODA) Information
Talking About Donation Handout
Theological perspective on organ and tissue donation
VisionGift
Teach-It-Yourself Curriculum FAQs
Beginning in the 2025-26 academic school year, an Oregon Revised Statute (ORS 336.474) went into effect, requiring all high schools in Oregon to educate on organ, eye, and tissue donation. We offer a factual, thoughtful, and culturally sensitive curriculum to schools and to the community that meets these new health education standards.
ORS 336.447 Instruction on organ and tissue donation and education (Oregon Laws 2021)
Cascade Life Alliance (CLA) is one of 56 federally designated non-profit Organ Procurement Organizations (OPOs) in the United States. Our curriculum was developed iteratively through the guidance and feedback of our directors, organ procurement coordinators, and community outreach coordinators. We recommend using our curriculum to lighten your teaching load and ensure that the education provided is both accurate and trusted.
Teach-It-Yourself Curriculum: With our resources, you’ll have everything you need to teach it yourself, including a 45-minute lesson plan, pre/post assessments, videos, and optional supplementary materials that complement the core curriculum. Supplementary materials may be used in addition to the core curriculum to extend your lesson.
Starting in the academic year 2025-26, Oregon Law requires health teachers to teach about organ, eye, and tissue donation in high schools. Although it is not required to use our curriculum, we are happy to offer you our Teach-it-Yourself materials to fulfill this requirement.
Yes, we have a Teach-it-Yourself version for educators. If you choose not to use it, we highly recommend at least looking over our curriculum and website to ensure accuracy in your own lesson. If you have a personal connection to organ donation or transplantation, we encourage sharing your story with your students!
This curriculum is designed for high school students but is appropriate and can be easily adapted to middle school classes as well.
This is not recommended for elementary aged students.
This curriculum is completely FREE! We are a federally designated non-profit Organ Procurement Organization (OPO) who supports and provides education on organ, eye, and tissue donation.
Yes, this curriculum utilizes digital slideshows and videos. You will need a computer, projector, and access to the internet to experience the full benefits of our curriculum. Additionally, all the Teach-it-Yourself materials must be downloaded from our website.
If you have any concerns about accessibility, please contact us (CLAOutreach@ohsu.edu) and we will try our best to troubleshoot.
No, this curriculum is introductory and assumes students do not know what organ, eye, and tissue donation is yet.
Both our Teach-It-Yourself Lesson Plan and the animated Multicultural Organ Donation video are available in Spanish. We have handouts in Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), and Russian. The mini documentary video has Spanish subtitles available on YouTube, which we created.
Please feel free to use our Parent/Guardian email template to notify parents of the upcoming education in advance. This email includes language surrounding our approach to donation education, highlighting that our curriculum is pressure-free, and never meant to be coercive. We are simply providing the facts, stories, and resources so people can make informed decisions. We also encourage reminding families that donation education is legally mandated by the Oregon Board of Education starting 2025.
If you have any questions or need help navigating the curriculum, please email CLAOutreach@ohsu.edu. If you have feedback about the curriculum, please fill out the post-presentation survey at https://form.jotform.com/242035219464049.