This chapter briefly discusses housing and housing education activities that offer several unique perspectives on understanding issues of housing for older adults. The housing education activities are as follows: (1) Find a Nursing Home, (2) Field Trips to Senior Facilities, (3) Household Disaster Planning Kits, (4) Long-Term Care Residence Disaster Planning and (5) Applying Anti-Racist Pedagogy to the Exploration of Senior Housing. Activity 1, simulates some of the challenges older adults and their families face by actively engaging participants in the process of evaluating nursing home quality. Activity 2, provides hands on context to understanding the diverse housing options in the senior housing continuum. Activity 3, addresses an often overlooked concern for persons aging in place. Activity 4, similarly addresses the issue of emergency preparedness, this time in the context of conducting research and a focus on institutional rather than individual planning.

Interacting with persons with progressive declines in cognitive function poses a wide range of challenges, not only for families and care providers, but for the person with dementia as well. This chapter briefly discusses two activities that offer participants opportunities to develop and apply positive approaches to interacting with persons with dementia. In Activity 1, Dementia Communication and Empathy, participants are asked to role play scenarios where persons with dementia endeavor to communicate with their caregiver. Insight and increased empathy are promoted through the challenges participants' experience, not only in understanding the message being communicated, but also the challenges of conveying even a simple message while impaired by physical and/or cognitive limitations. Activity 2, Enhancing Students' Therapeutic Interaction Skills with Older Adults with Dementia, brings participants into the community to interact directly with persons with dementia.

Our ideas about spirituality and our connection to others, the universe, and the world around us vary over time, and, because spirituality is tied to the search for meaning, it becomes an interesting platform for gerontologists and their work with older adults. The two activities in this chapter bring both breadth and depth to the issue of spirituality in the context of end-of-life issues and, specifically, a direct assessment that connects students to their own selves and older adults. In Activity 1, Spiritual Assessment, Beran brings to the classroom a tool that allows students to reflect on their own spirituality and then compare that to an understanding of the broad concept of spirituality. In Activity 2, Exploring Cultural Death Practices Through Group Presentations, Claver and Goeller provide an opportunity for students to become more engaged in considering death and dying and later life in a cultural context.

This chapter briefly discusses health care and health care education exercises that provide students the opportunity to engage with various aspects of the health care system and for future health care professionals to engage with elders to minimize potential ageist attitudes. The health care education exercises are: (1) An Evidence-Based Team Approach: Benefits of a Gerontological Interdisciplinary Team, (2) Bingocize®: An Intergenerational Service- Learning Initiative to Improve Older Adults' Functional Fitness While Engaging Undergraduate Students and the Community, (3) Medical Students Community Engagement, and (4) What Would You Do? Getting Resources for Your Older Adult. Activity 1 helps to encourage nursing students and other future health care workers to interact with other disciplines in order to provide the best possible care for older adults and their families. Activity 2 encourages students to interact with older adults through exercise programs.

It is vital that those who will interact with older adults in professional and health settings be well prepared to understand the variability of people's aging experiences. In teaching about physical aging, therefore, it is important to balance providing students with an understanding and empathy for the physical challenges some older adults might face with the important caveat that not all older adults are in poor health, nor do the stereotypical notions of physical aging happen to all, or even most, older adults. This chapter briefly discusses the housing education activities that offer the opportunity to provide such balance to students. The housing education activities are (1) How it Feels to be Old, (2) Hands on Experience with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), (3) Hearing Aids and Pizza, and (4) Thinking Critically about Autonomy and Dependency in Aging.

Public policy is an essential component to quality of life for older adults and provides funding and guidelines for the agencies and staff that provide services. This chapter provides activities that help students to develop a better understanding of public policy and aging. Activity 1, Examining Organizations that Benefit Older Adults in the Local Community (Rodriguez), provides a venue for students, community, and educators to "explore the local network of organizations that exist for older adults". In Activity 2, Letter to A Legislator: Civic Engagement for Gerontology Students (Temple), students have the opportunity to "write a persuasive letter to a legislator to support or oppose a proposed aging related social policy". Activity 3, What Will Your Future Look Like? Financing Retirement Exercise (Baker & Brown) provides a means for students to understand how "events in the economy, political spheres, and personal health status can influence their retirement income".