A page from "Choosing the Best Path," the manual used in the abstinence curriculum.

During the summer, Try Wait! will be filming local videos to better connect with Hawai'i students.

Advocates do not expect to convince all teenagers to refrain from sexual activity, but they do hope that encouraging teens to wait until marriage will reduce the risks associated with sexual activity in a state that ranks among the nation's worst for its incidence of teen pregnancies — 12th in the nation — and the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia — 10th in the nation. Most of those diagnosed with chlamydia are between 15 and 29.

"We're just trying to show them that it's an option," said Susan Ray, director of the Try Wait! program.

Nationally, more teenagers are choosing to wait, according to statistics that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released last month. Last year, 47 percent of high school students reported having intercourse, compared with 54 percent in 1991.

The state's Board of Education requires public schools to follow an abstinence-based education policy, promoting it in health classes as the "surest and most responsible way" to prevent unintended pregnancy, STDs and emotional distress. However, the schools are also expected to teach other forms of protection from the fifth grade on.

Abstinence is not a foreign concept at Halau Ku Mana, a charter school in the middle of the eight-lesson Try Wait! program.

To 17-year-old Namahama Baldwin, the message of Try Wait! makes perfect sense. "I think it's very important," she said. "Two of my really good friends have babies now because they took sex really casually because everyone else was doing it."

However, "For myself personally, I made a commitment to wait," she said.

It's easier to keep the commitment at Halau Ku Mana, where her friends tend to avoid casual sex.

Abstinence-only education has been gaining steam across the nation, as educators, health professionals and religious groups attempt to combat curiosity, peer pressure, advertising and the popular media, which have been criticized for being too sexual in nature.

According to Try Wait!, 52 percent of teens have signed pledge cards offered by many abstinence programs across the country saying they will wait until marriage. The results are similar in Hawai'i, where Ray said the students are offered the chance to sign pledges after the Try Wait! program but are not pressured to do so.

Abstinence programs say public pledges heighten the commitment that students have to remaining abstinent.

The federal government has provided financing for hundreds of abstinence-only programs across the country, provided they do not also teach students about safe sex practices or relate abstinence to religion. Try Wait! has a three-year federal grant and was awarded $750,000 to begin the program this year. While under the umbrella of Catholic Charities, a social service network, Try Wait! has no religious base, officials say.

However, abstinence-only education has generated a backlash from several organizations concerned that it does not necessarily convince teenagers to wait and makes sex even more risky because they have not learned safe sex practices. Often the abstinence-only programs teach students why certain contraceptives fail and do not address how they can help prevent pregnancy and disease, critics say.

And a national study by Columbia and Yale university researchers indicated that those who pledged not to have sex before marriage contracted STDs at a statistically similar rate as those who did not take the pledge.

Halau Ku Mana and other schools use Try Wait! in conjunction with other sex education programs to make sure students are informed of all the options.

For instance Shanita Akana, peer education teacher at Campbell High School, raved about the Try Wait! program, but added, "The school should always offer contraceptive methods and prevention and all that stuff. It can't just be abstinence-based. They need to have full exposure."

Right now at Campbell, at least four freshmen are pregnant, and 20 Hawai'i schools have higher pregnancy rates, Akana said.

The program's intent is not to condemn those who have engaged in sexual activities, or stigmatize teen parents or those who are expecting. Part of the message is "If you've done things in the past, you can start over today," Ray said.

Akana hopes to keep bringing in Try Wait! as one of the components of the sex education program, and some of her students will be part of the instructional videos the program is putting together.

She said of the program: "It teaches them to postpone sexual activities. It teaches them everything from reasons why people are sexually active, to why students choose to be abstinent."

She was particularly impressed that the young adults who teach the program follow their own advice. "I think that's what gave them credibility," she said. "I was blown away by the commitment these young adults have."

Try Wait! instructor Wade Inn, 25, who opened the session with a positive-themed rap, said his social circle consists primarily of people who choose abstinence or are married.

That makes waiting easy, because "I am surrounded by people who do that same kind of thing," he said.

Kuulei Shafee, 14, enjoyed the first session of Try Wait! She thinks it's good that Halau Ku Mana brings in sex education programs so students will know how to stay safe when they need to make a decision about sex.

Of Try Wait!, in particular, she said, "I think it's good, that people should be abstinent."

But Kuulei doesn't expect that stance to be popular with everyone. "Some of our peers think it's cool to have sex," she said.

Maui Cambra, 15, agreed. From the way his friends talk about sex, he is skeptical of the program's claim that 75 percent of teens think it's cool to be abstinent. "They like to brag about having sex," he said.

While he has not made a commitment to wait until marriage, Maui sees an advantage in being abstinent "because you're not as afraid of STDs and pregnancies."