"I Can't Breathe" Pam Laffin Video: Streaming on Vimeo

During my later elementary school and early middle school years, I remember seeing many anti-smoking advertisements sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. The advertisements that I remember the most focused on a local woman named Pam Laffin. Pam was in her late twenties and suffered from emphysema. The advertisements were more graphic in nature than other advertisements I had seen, and I'm sure the DPH wanted to hit viewers with emotional advertisements.

If you know me as a teacher or have seen some past posts of mine, you know that I am not a fan of showing videos in a health education classrooms. I feel that videos are too often used as a cop-out by teachers who have no health education experience, or that they are not used appropriately. I do use a handful of video clips in class, but I only show two or three videos that could be considered somewhere close to a full length class period. Videos CAN be used appropriately, and the students sometimes enjoy them, but as I am shifting to a more skills-based classroom I don't see the need. Plus, it's not as fun as actual teaching!

One of the videos that I do show is an MTV True Life Episode entitled, "I Can't Breathe." "I Can't Breathe" was produced by MTV with assistance from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, and documents Pam Laffin's experience with cigarette smoking and the negative health effects (cumulating with emphysema and a failed lung transplant) she dealt with. The video is short and to the point, and I use it to tie together the previous lessons we dealing with tobacco: smoking's effects on the body and the straw walk. The video is only twenty minutes long, but by using my go-to video viewing protocol (Record, Elaborate, Extend) as well as answering the numerous student questions that come up, this takes the full 53 minute class period.

I will say that some students will find this video a little graphic. They compare a healthy lung to a smoker's lung on an autopsy table, and the lungs are cut into to be examined. There are also some clips of Pam's lung transplant surgery. I know where these points are and give the students warning before they come up. 

You can stream "I Can't Breathe" directly from Vimeo. My district blocks YouTube and for some reason Vimeo is not blocked. Please note that I am not sure how that video is posted there or the copyright laws it may be violating. All I know is that this video has been effective in my classroom and you may find it effective in yours.

Here is a link to "I Can't Breathe" on Vimeo. Here is another link to the video viewing protocol I use for the few videos I do show.

Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions, comments, or concerns.

Tobacco Education Activities: Sticky Notes, Visuals, and Straw Walk (Oh my!)

NOTE: These are some activities I use in my classroom. I am not sure who initially came up with these ideas, but I've had success with them and in no way am I trying to take credit for inventing them.

I wanted to write a post to share some of my favorite activities relating to tobacco education, after being surprised that I haven't written about these yet. Not all of these activities are "skills based" per say, but they do address the needs of different types of learners while also helping to create meaning among the students. I used these activities for an assignment in a class I am taking (not through BU, through a local education consortium) on brain based learning. We had to think about activities that would create meaning and would be considered relevant by our students. Immediately, these activities came to mind.

In order for learning to be effective, the learning must make sense to the student, and it must have meaning. My personal challenge with everything I teach this year is asking these questions: Does this make sense? Does this have meaning? Is this relevant?

I don't think boring worksheets create meaning; neither do tests or quizzes (for the most part, although they do have their place in the teacher's toolbox). Granted, as a teacher you will never be guaranteed that every single student will always be into what you are teaching, but there are ways (active learning, skills based health education, student involvement) to at least put the ball more in your court. Obviously, I think all of health education is relevant to the lives of teenagers, but part of the trouble is that so many students have heard the same messages over again: don't smoke, don't drink, don't have sex, blah blah blah. No wonder kids tune out! As teachers, we have to give them reasons to tune in instead of tune out to what we are saying.

The nature of these activities is part-lecture, part visual, part hands-on simulation. I really enjoy teaching these activities,  and it seems like most of the students enjoy them as well. The third one, as you'll see below, can be especially eye opening!

Sticky Notes. This sticky notes activity occurs during a lecture portion about tobacco's effect on the human body. I'm not the biggest fan of lectures, but let's be honest: sometimes they have to be done. I provide students with a copy of the notes with fill ins, so they know what information to look for. This was initially done for some special education students, and I decided to use it for everyone, too. As soon as I start the lesson (which includes the visuals mentioned below), I start a timer on my watch to beep every six minutes. I go about teaching the lesson normally: presenting information, checking for understanding, answering student questions, etc. As soon as the watch beeps, I place a stick note on the wall in front of the classroom. Students are initially puzzled, and I move on saying they will find out at a later time. Some students grasp this right away, others do not.

Have an idea where I am going with this? Read on!

My classes are 53 minutes each, and for this activity I'll probably get through 45 minutes of instruction time before I start to wrap things up and end with a summarizer. For the record, I don't get to utilize summarizers all the time, but for this lesson I find it essential. At this point, there's approximately seven or eight sticky notes on the wall. Here's what they mean, and here is more or less what I tell my students:

• Every 72 seconds (1 minute and 12 seconds), someone in the United States dies of smoking related causes
• The watch beeped every six minutes. During that time, five people in the United States have, theoretically, died from smoking related causes
• This adds up to approximately 443,000 people every year
• If each sticky note represents five people, how many people in the United States have passed away during this lesson?

Usually, this point tends to hit home with students, although some of them do question the merit of the data, which I obtained from the CDC and the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids. I've thought about using one sticky note for each person, but I think that would take away from the mystique.

Visuals. There are many great visuals out there relating to tobacco use: infographics, charts and graphs, pictures of black lungs. These visuals run the gamut from educational and fact based to having a sensational shock value. If I put myself in the shoes of my students, I would probably tune out any sort of visuals I have already seen or ones that don't apply to me. Thinking outside the box and providing students with manipulative visuals is my answer to this problem. Here are two visuals I use; I do use some others, but these are slightly different.

Enter the Tar Jar. The Tar Jar was purchased by another health educator in my building, and is displayed to the right. The Tar Jar that we have contains a representation of the amount of tar that will pass through the lungs of a smoker who smokes half a pack of cigarettes every day for an entire year. It's easy to see that the amount would double if someone were to smoke one pack a day for an entire year. We discuss that tar (Total Aerosol Residue) is produced when tobacco burns, and we also take this time to discuss tobacco smoke in general. I am not sure where we purchased our Tar Jar, but if you would like to create your own Tar Jar, check out this PDF for a recipe! 

Another visual I use is bubble wrap. That's right, basic bubble wrap. Once, I ran out and had to find online bubble wrap to use! I use bubble wrap when we talk about the alveoli in the lungs, which are tiny air filled sacs. Their main job is to exchange oxygen. Alveoli are very stretchy, like tiny balloons. Smoking damages the alveoli by making them less elastic; this damage is permanent and cannot be repaired. Ultimately, this makes it harder to breathe and can lead to COPD. I use the bubble wrap in a demonstration, popping a few of the bubbles and asking students to re-inflate the bubbles I popped. This is impossible, and it emphasizes the point that damage done to the alveoli cannot be repaired. I do point out that the alveoli do not "pop" like the bubble wrap, and that the takeaway point is that the damage cannot be repaired.

Straw Walk. This is one of my favorites; an entire lesson in itself. I am able to tie in information relating to heart rate my students have learned in physical education class. I being by setting the following ground rules: "Students must behave respectfully and responsibly during all activities in class today. While we are in the hallways, there will be no talking, no fooling around, and no immature activity. Any violations of the above or specific rules mentioned by Mr. Bartlett before the activity will result in an immediate detention. No excuses, no exceptions! If at any point you feel dizzy, short of breath, or lightheaded, STOP. Your grade will NOT be negatively affected. Listen to your body!"

Initially, students take their resting heart rate on a thirty second count, and multiply that by two. I the describe a route we are going to take walking through the middle school, finishing with a stair climb from the first floor up to the third floor. When we get to the top, the students take their heart rates again. They also make a note on their worksheets of how they felt in comparison to taking their rest heart in the classroom.


Upon our return to the classroom, each student receives a drinking straw. Now, we complete the same walk as before, but with a twist: students have to place the straw in their mouth and breathe only through the straw. Sometimes, I give students the option of pinching their nose shut, too. We complete the same walk, and for most students it gets tough once we start going up the stairs. We use the same process: take the heart rate again, but I also focus more on how the students feel after this portion of the activity. Sometimes, the heart rate doesn't always increase, depending on a variety of factors (fitness, error in taking heart rate, etc.; in my experience, however, students almost always identify that breathing through the straw simply felt harder.


Once we get back to the classroom the second time, we go through a discussion and the students engage in a reflection about the activity. Some questions I may ask: Which activity felt the hardest for you to complete? How did it feel breathing through the straw? What would your life be like if this was the only way you could breathe? We only walked for this activity, what would it feel like to run, dance, swim, etc. breathing like this? How would regular lifestyle activities be affected?

Sometimes, I offer students the opportunity to go through their normal school day only breathing through the straw, but no one has taken me up on it! When I was student teaching, my cooperating practitioner had the students run laps around the gym. I have thought about doing this, but because not all of my students are athletes, I like this activity as conducted because it focuses on lifestyle activities: we all walk and walk up and down stairs.


Wrap Up. Listen, I'm not saying that these are magical activities that would completely hold the attention of your students for the entire class period. Depending on the population you are working with, they might not even be effective. As a health educator, that is your decision to make. All I know is that I tend to luck out when I use approaches like this. If these types of activities are able to create meaning with the brains of my students, there's a greater likelihood that they will remember the information. So, when the time comes for one of my students to determine whether or not to engage in risky behavior, this information could be recalled and may prevent any negative consequences associated with risky behaviors. Granted, this is only the knowledge side; providing students with skills in health education is the other piece of the puzzle.


Later this week, I'll finally be reposting the HIV Transmission Simulation that I have taken from an excellent online source. I'll be posting the original lesson as well as the one with my own additions. I have to catch up on some work for my class before I head to Vermont for the weekend, so I will try to get it up before I leave, but I can't promise anything. Stay tuned!

"Our Favorite Drugs" Infographic

GOOD Magazine publishes a Transparency every week on their website, which is full of infographics relating to many diverse topics. Since browsing through their website for the first time, I've added a few feeds to my Google Reader account! GOOD also keeps an archive of their transparencies on flickr.

The infographic "Our Favorite Drugs" puts drug use into a visual form, using information from local law enforcement officials who were asked by the Department of Justice which drugs posed the greatest danger to their local communities.

This visual is an easy addition to any drug unit. The sky is the limit to the types of questioning or reasoning the students could use; the teacher could even use this as a type of unit activator by asking students to predict drug use in different parts of the country before showing students the infographic. Students can look at the infographic, attempting to infer why certain drugs are more problematic in some parts of the country as opposed to others; to examine regional, local, and other (cultural, geographic, etc) differences; to predict future trends of drug use.  Note that alcohol is not included in this infographic. The visuals might be a little confusing at first, but it becomes clear once you see how it's set up.

I can't embed the copyrighted image, and if you missed the link above, you can check out "Our Favorite Drugs" in GOOD Magazine's flickr account by clicking here. I've also recently discovered some infographics online from TIME as well; check back in the near future for a post on those infographics.

Website to Use: The New Science of Addiction

When I was student teaching during my senior year, I had to develop a few lessons around addiction. In collaborating with my supervising practitioner, I found out about a fantastic website I have since used in middle school.

The New Science of Addiction: Genetics and The Brain is run by the Genetics Learning Center at the University of Utah. The website is very detailed, containing information on a wide variety of topics relating to addiction. Most of the information is for high school or college aged students, but I find that I can select certain pieces of information to present to my middle school students that they are able to comprehend.

According to the website, "Drug addiction is a chronic disease characterized by changes in the brain which result in a compulsive desire to use a drug. A combination of many factors including genetics, environment, and behavior influence a person's addiction risk, making it an incredibly complicated disease. The new science of addiction considers all of these factors--from biology to family--to unravel the complexities of the addicted brain." By covering all of these factors, the website remains a comprehensive resource on everything relating to addiction.

The website focuses on the following topics:

• Natural Reward Pathways Exist in The Brain
• Drugs Alter the Brain's Reward Pathway
• Genetics Is An Important Factor in Addiction
• Timing and Circumstances Influence Addiction
• Challenges and Issues In Addiction

Each section contains interactive activities (e.g. making a neuron, "cerebral commando," "mouse house" party, etc) that present information on varying topics: drugs of abuse, how neurons work, the different parts of the brain, etc. These interactive, visually stimulating activities are great for breaking down concepts that may come across as complex to students. I've used the Drugs of Abuse link when discussing basic information about certain drugs during our ATOD unit, and in the past have also used the Mouse Party link.

Extra information about each topic is also included, and is great for expanding upon basic information you may have already covered. Combining visuals with text explanations, these pages are well worth a look! The one on drug delivery methods has served as a great in-class review during my health classes. 

Please explore this valuable website! I do not go into too much detail about addiction because students will learn more about the topic in high school, but this website allows me to introduce students to this important topic without stepping on the toes of the high school teachers.

As always, please feel free to e-mail me with any questions, comments, or concerns!

Cough Medicine Abuse

This post is all over the place. At the end I have numerous links; links to articles and resources. For all I know, this issue will result in ongoing commentary from me right here on Middle School Health Esteem. I should be reading about standard deviation and z scores for my grad class, but this is important for me to post about.

Over the last month or so I've heard a lot about DXM, dextromethorphan. I was attending a district wide professional development class when a teacher from the high school in my district informed me about the increasing trend among our community of students abusing cough medicines. Last week, while in the middle of our seventh grade ATOD unit, I covered DXM and numerous other drugs in class. Then, an article appeared in the town newspaper, which was shortly followed by an article in the local, regional paper. The next logical step was for television media to get involved. This week the local ABC affiliate, WCVB in Boston, had a story on the evening news. The media was reporting on an increase in teenagers abusing cough medicines containing DXM.

Well, it's no secret now that I teach in Danvers, Massachusetts. Originally, I didn't want that to come out on here simply because anyone can read whatever I type here, and I don't have tenure yet. But, then I realized I really have nothing to hide, I'm promoting what I do in the classroom, and if anything, maybe we can get some conversations flowing about this issue and other issues too.

Abusing cough medicines with DXM has many negative health effects: impaired judgement, vomiting, hallucinations, dizziness, disorientation, etc. More information on DXM is linked below. Many medicines contain other ingredients that can be deadly in excess amounts as well. This post isn't really about DXM itself, but more about how Danvers is approaching this issue.

After I read the article in the regional paper, I e-mailed the director of Danvers CARES, a prevention coalition that always gets two huge thumbs up from me. I asked the director if she had any additional resources I could share with all of my students to educate them about DXM and prescription drug abuse in general. We only touch upon substance abuse in general terms in the seventh grade curriculum; they go more in depth in high school health (we focus on tobacco and alcohol). She responded with some great information that I've included below. I'm using them in some "teachable moments" coming up with all grade levels, because whenever a teachable moment exists I snag that opportunity!

It's also important to remember that DXM abuse is only one part of prescription drug and OTC drug abuse. It falls under that general umbrella, which encompasses abuse of anything from Oxycontin to diet pills. So, abuse of one drug is only one small part of a much larger issue.

We also don't really know how long this has been going on. National data about this type of behavior, according to the director of Danvers CARES, only goes back to 2006. What I do know is that we in Danvers are very lucky to have an organization like Danvers CARES to spearhead community involvement over this issue. Our police department visited all the local pharmacies to talk to the managers recently, and there is a round table discussion scheduled for next month with police officers, school officials, Danvers CARES representatives, and more. The purpose is to educate parents and citizens about the dangers of DXM abuse. I'm a big believer in involving parents in what goes in within a child's education, and I'm trying to add a little more of that each year in my own teaching. Providing these opportunities for parents to hear from people who know what they're talking about and to ask those questions is a great thing! Parents: please talk to your kids, and get them the facts.

Basically, many parts of the coordinated school health program that I'm a huge proponent of are working together on this issue. In order for any change to happen a huge effort is required; it looks like we're seeing that becoming reality here. Will it work? I hope so. Ultimately, it's up to the kids themselves to change their own behaviors. Ideally, it would be great to identify trends with risk behaviors before they happen. Unfortunately, that's not always realistic, and I'm not sure where that would even start. A reader comment I read on one of the newspaper articles online mentioned that when kids start using these types of drugs, that they have surpassed marijuana and are looking for something else. I don't know if that has any truth to it or not (anything posted online like that needs to be taken with a grain of salt), but if it is true than I'm scared to think about what could come next.

Check out the following resources below.

Resources:

DXM Stories: Make Up Your Own Mind About Cough Medicine. Provides factual information, stories from former users, and news about cough medicine abuse. The site says all information is from reliable, medical research or from first hand accounts of former users.

Above The Influence: OTC Drugs. From the "abovetheinfluence" website.

*Note: The director of Danvers CARES mentioned that some of the following are produced by pharmaceutical companies. They have great information, but remember the course as you browse them. I used the Kids Health reference sheet in class this week, as an FYI.

Tip Sheet for Giving Oral OTC Cough and Cold Medicines to Children.

Check The OTC Label.

Preventing Teen Cough Medicine Abuse: A Parent's Guide.

Cough and Cold Medicine Abuse: KidsHealth.org

Student Feedback: Alcohol Simulation Stations

Last week, I was able to use the alcohol simulation stations activity with my seventh graders. I adapt the activity to fit our class length (45 minutes) as well as the attention span of seventh grade students. I included five stations, which I found to be enough to get the point of the lesson across.

Whenever I use activities like this, I ask for the students to write a brief reflection on what they experienced. The chart they filled out during class had the factual information they needed, so for the reflection I wanted to know their opinions on the activity, how they felt about their experience, and what they were going to do with the information they learned.

The lesson went really well! There were some logistical issues I could fix, but when it came time to go over the chart, I could see the light bulbs go off in their heads. I was very happy at how things went, and my initial concerns that the lesson wouldn't click with seventh grade students were false.

I e-mailed Dr. Whalen, who helped create this activity, with some student responses. Below are selected thoughts from some of those responses. A few are in their entirety, others are excerpts. I've included them with grammatical errors and all. Enjoy!

"I really enjoyed the station activity about alcohol. I enjoyed this activity because they were all very challenging, which makes me want to keep going."

"I didn't think it was going to be hard to complete all these challenges until I tried."

"Something that would be easy to do normally was very difficult during the activity when we were 'under the influence' of alcohol."

"This is the best activity we've done all year, I think."

This next one is from one of my brighter students, who also told me he used this opportunity to showcase his vocabulary: "Today in health class, we did various activities designed to simulate alcohol abuse. For instance, take the 'foggy glasses' activity. In this activity, the participant donned spectacles obstructed with a foreign substance, most likely petroleum jelly. The wearer was then required to painstakingly navigate an ordinary sewing thread through the literal 'eye of the needle.' However, since a needle could be potentially dangerous in a situation where one's vision was impaired, a small chain was implemented as a safety precaution. I personally felt extremely frustrated and frigghtfuly incompitant at simple everyday tasks while performing this staton. This station was ment to simulate how your vision could be adversely affected in a situation where alcohol was abused. One could easily crash an automobile or at the very least stumble and fall down while being influenced by alcohol. And so, in conclusion, I enjoyed these activities immensely. I believe that be demonstrating the negative affects of alcohol to students, more lives can be saved. In the time-honored words of Officer S., 'Smoking kills more people, but alcohol ruins more lives.' "

"I really enjoyed todays class we were up and moving and really experimenting. I would so much rather do class activities like that because we get to feel what it's like. I really enjoyed todays class I think we should have more classes like todays."

"I never really understood what an alcoholic went through. I thought that an alcoholic could control themselves, and I didn't know how much alcohol affects the body. In the end I now understand what an alcoholic goes through when drinking and this acitivty has taught me not to drink."

"The activities that we did in class today really helped show me what it would feel like to drink all the time. I liked the balloon juggling station because it showed how hard it is to juggle other things in your life when you're focused on alcohol."

Next up: some great, interactive diagrams of the male & female reproductive systems I'm using for puberty!

mrbartletthealth@gmail.com

Interactive Activities: ATOD Unit (Part Two)

Today I'm going to post a link to the lesson plan that may be my favorite classroom activity. This activity was partly developed by one of my outstanding professors at Springfield, Dr. Shannon Whalen. The activity, "Alcohol Simulation Stations" is located in a book she co-wrote with Dominick Splendorio and Sal Chiarello entitled, Tools for Teaching Health. I used this book during undergrad and I've used different lessons from it in my job, too. It's located at Amazon.com for purchase; if you would like a preview of the book Google Books has a few pages scanned in. I really hope that she writes another book in the future. She has so many great ideas!!

When talking about alcohol, it's easy to list, lecture, or show videos demonstrating the short-term effects alcohol has on the body. With such a captivating topic, who wants to sit and lecture to students?! (Lectures do have their place, sometimes) Wouldn't it be better if they could actually experience those effects in a safe, controlled manner? The simulation stations combine activities from many sources in order for students to see how alcohol can effect them in the short term. Some of these activities I have seen in Tom Jackson's books, one of which I mentioned in my last post. Others, I'm sure the Dr. Whalen and her colleagues came up with themselves.

This activity requires extensive preparation, and I highly recommend that you try out the activities yourself beforehand. This lesson definitely deserves a test run before you teach it. If you're short on classroom time, simply select a number of activities that will fit your schedule. You may need to adapt it in other ways, too: I would never bring in sewing needle into my classroom, so for the station needing a needle I just have students thread a button with string sans-needle.

I've taught this lesson to colleagues at the MAHPERD Conference and to college freshmen as a senior during undergrad, as well as an adapted lesson to eighth grade students in middle school. I find this activity ideal for high school age students. Each time, it was well received.

As a side note, the formatting on the PDF might be off. As always, personalize the document! Revamp the accompanying worksheet to make it yours. I always reformat documents with my own unique style. Lastly, I feel okay posting this for many reasons. One, Dr. Whalen always said the best teachers were the best stealers. Two, we passed out lesson plans for this lesson at MAHPERD in 2007.

Also, for me the post-activity discussion was when the light bulbs went off. It's so important to debrief the activity and emphasize the dangers of what could happen if students consume alcohol (or, for a college crowd of of-age drinkers, if they consume it irresponsibly). Connecting the effects with their resulting dangers is a main point of this lesson.

So, here it is! Click here for a PDF of "Alcohol Simulation Stations." If you use this in your classroom of want any pointers, let me know!

Interactive Activities: ATOD Unit (Part One)

The ATOD (Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs) Unit is my favorite to teach. I could easily spend an entire course just on this, but unfortunately I am not able to do so! Today's post deals with tobacco education in my classroom.

Tobacco education may be the first thing (besides sex ed) that comes to mind when someone hears the term, "health class." There are many substance-abuse programs out there. Perhaps the most famous, D.A.R.E. (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), is surrounded by controversy. A meta-analysis by Ennett et al. generally found that the short term effectiveness of DARE was less than other, interactive prevention programs. However, I only skimmed the well-known article and they do find some positives for the program as well.

Our school district uses a curriculum component from The Michigan Model for Health entitled, "The Power is Your to Be Tobacco Free" in seventh grade. The curriculum focuses on teaching students the skills they need to stay away from tobacco, make decisions to protect themselves and others from tobacco, and how tobacco can harm their bodies. It doesn't come with a lot of the "facts," so we supplement.

Below I've outlined two sample activities that I've used in my classroom during parts of our tobacco unit. I'll have another post later this week with a second set. I adapted a lot of these from other sources. After all, the best teachers are sometimes the best stealers! As an aside, I make sure that I never say smoking is "stupid" or anything along those lines in order to remain sensitive to students who have family members who smoke. One main objective of my job is to give the students the tools they need to make healthy, positive decisions. Ideally, it helps promote behavior change too. If adults want to smoke, then that is their educated choice (presumably).

During my lesson on smoking's effect on the body, each student has a worksheet with fill ins, charts, and blank sections. They write in information I have on a PowerPoint as I go through each effect.

Is Your Money Up in Smoke? (Homework Activity) Click here for a PDF of the assignment.

The cost of a smoking habit is expensive. As a homework assignment, I have the students research the local price of one pack of cigarettes. Students may ask an adult, use the internet, or look for prices at local stores/gas stations. After they find the price, they do some math to determine how much a person who smokes one pack a day spends on cigarettes for a year and ten years.

Students then "go shopping." They find out what they could spend all that money on. Some students make the argument that all of the money spent on cigarettes could be spend on issues such as education or world hunger. A post-homework reflection could be added, but I choose to use a discussion instead. Some students will mention that for people who smoke more than one pack a day, the cost would be far more expensive.

Extension: Compare the cost of a pack of cigarettes in different regions of the country, such as in New York City where tobacco taxes are very high. We could then discuss that in NYC's situation, smoking has decreased dramatically (a blog entry on this last link will be forthcoming if I can find more up-to-date data, especially after their controversial ad from last year; I used that in class last year). You could also have students graph differences based on location, which ties in cross-curricula activities with geography and math. However, in my opinion this is spending too much time on a very small aspect of the tobacco curriculum. The Michigan Model has this as an in-class, teacher-led activity. I choose to do it differently.

Cilia "Volleyball!"

Adapted from "Cilia Volleyball" in Activities That Teach by Tom Jackson

Cigarette smoke greatly affects the cilia in a smoker's lungs. Cilia are tiny, hair-like structures who have the job of sweeping foreign material such as mucus, dirt, and other harmful material out of the lungs. Cigarette smoke damages the cilia, and as a result there's often a buildup of mucus in the lungs. This results in the body's next method of removing gunk from the lungs of a smoker: smoker's hack.

This activity involves blowing up balloons before class. Because of my classroom setup, I blow up about eight. I label each one "Mucus" with Sharpie beforehand. After I talk about what I just mentioned and smoker's hack, I take out my balloons. I divide my class into thirds (I have three sections of two columns, with a space between sections), and have them demonstrate being cilia. I usually do this first by waving my arms and hands like in the "wave" seen at numerous sporting events. I get into it; it's more fun that way!

After the students get the hang of this, I have one third of the room do the wave. The front of the room acts as deep in the lungs, and I have a student stand behind the last row to represent the mouth (complete with hacking sound effect). Then, I drop the balloons, and as a result of the wave motion, the balloons find their way through the rows and out the mouth. I explain that this is a normal, healthy lung; when there is mucus and other gunk the cilia are able to expel it.

Next, I go to the middle of the room. I do the same thing this time around, but now I select a small number (maybe three out of nine or ten in the section) to sit on their hands. They're not allowed to touch the balloons in any way. This group tries to expel all the "mucus" and is usually pretty successful, but not fully. Then, I go to the last group. This time, I make sure that all the students except one in the front and one in the back sit on their hands. Usually, none of the "mucus" goes anywhere.

After this demonstration I explain that the last group represents the lungs of a habitual smoker. After they were able to experience being cilia in the lungs, having a discussion about the activity is very important. Some students don't make the connection right away, so I use images of cilia in the lungs to further explain their role in the body.

NOTE: Tom Jackson, who created this activity, has the balloons represent particles of smoke/tar that pass into the lungs. His activity is slightly different; mine was adapted to fit the space of my small classroom.

I was planning on documenting some more activities in this post, but I feel that I have rambled on long enough! As always, please feel free to comment or e-mail with questions, comments, or concerns.

Opiate Abuse: Massachusetts Suburbs

I'm taking a break from writing about the Educational Leadership articles to show you a series of newspaper articles from The Enterprise of Brockton, Massachusetts. The TV show Chronicle (of the local ABC affiliate WCVB) aired an episode tonight on the epidemic of oxycontin and heroin addictions (opiate abuse) currently ravaging the suburbs.

This news certainly isn't new. Locally in the north shore of Massachusetts, opiate abuse came to the forefront in the early 2000s as many pharmacies reported thefts of prescription drugs such as oxycontin. Once pills on the street became too expensive, addicts turned to cheaper heroin; a downward spiral ensued. The addiction of high school pitching ace Jeff Allison added media attention to the issue, and the District Attorney of Essex County even created a curriculum for area high schools about oxycontin.

The original articles from The Enterprise appeared a few years ago. The newspaper put them online with additional information about opiate addictions and where to go for help. The newspaper has continually reported on this problem, and below are the links to check out.

There are no easy solutions to opiate addictions, or any addictions ravaging communities. Schools need to teach the consequences associated with drug use and students need to learn the skills to avoid becoming involved with drugs. Families, communities, and individuals all need to take proactive roles in helping prevent this problem from increasing. It is a multifaceted effort! How many lives are too many to lose?

"Wasted Youth" Interactive Site

"Wasted Youth" Ongoing Coverage