UAS Health Clinic’s annual event taught students about reproductive health

By KORTNEY STEVENS

Staff Writer, UAS Whalesong 

Students decorated penis and vagina shaped cookies while learning about reproductive health. The Student Health Center at University of Alaska Southeast hosted an event called Sex on the Beach on Valentine’s day for students to come learn about reproductive health. 

Amanda Arra, the physician assistant at the Student Health Clinic has been doing this event for five years around Valentine’s day. She started working at the UAS health clinic six years ago and realized that students frequently came into her office asking questions about reproductive health. She decided to create an event so students can learn and have fun at the same time. 

“Students coming into college may not know very much about the basic anatomy about things that they need to know if they are going to become sexually active,” Arra said. “So I thought it would be important to address that.”

Students came in and put a lei on, got a fruity drink, ate chocolate, and decorated sex organ shaped cookies. Once they did some of the fun things, they took a quiz to test their knowledge about reproductive health. There were five tests topics, anatomy, birth control, healthy relationships, infections and animal kingdom. Students took any of these tests and went over the answers with someone to see how many were correct. 

Isadore Christenson is a junior at UAS and comes to this event every year. 

“I did take the infection quiz and I got more questions correct that I expected. If you think you know some of the basics, it helps test your knowledge,” Christenson said. “This event is fun because we can have really outrageous things like these sex organ cookies.”

Rhiannon Norton-Davis, a UAS student who works with Arra in the Student Health Clinic. This was her first reproductive health event tried to make it fun and educational. 

“I think this event helps a lot because high school sex education isn’t the greatest, so you learn stuff in college,” Norton-Davis said. 

Students with any questions or concerns about reproductive health can schedule an appointment at the UAS Student Health Clinic with Amanda Arra at the Student Resource Center or by calling 907-796-6000 Monday through Friday, 8am-5pm.  

UAS Health Clinic’s annual event taught students about reproductive health