We've included these activities to help teachers/group leaders explain to children how dangerous tobacco use is. Please check back from time to time.We will be adding more activities.
Betcha Can't Eat Just One!
The Power of Potato Chips
To illustrate how cravings can be induced, and to explain the differences
between wants and chemical addiction.
Just one potato chip teases the taste buds and creates a sensation of want. Though not a perfect analogy, this exercise can serve as a springboard for discussing the concept of addiction with your class.
Supplies: One large bag of potato chips. Optional:
additional chips for snacking during the discussion.
Directions: Pass the bag of potato chips as students enter
the room, instructing that students take only one chip. Tell the students
to eat the chip, then ask the following questions:
How many of you would like another chip? How do cravings for potato chips
differ from cravings for tobacco products? (nicotine is a
physically addictive drug). How might your body react if you stopped eating
potato chips today? (no withdrawal symptoms)
Ask, "How might your body react if you were addicted to nicotine
and tried to stop using tobacco? (This includes cigarettes, cigars, and
smokeless tobacco.)
Discuss the withdrawal symptoms that people go through when they try to stop smoking.
- restlessness
- eating more than usual impatience
- frustration, anger difficulty concentrating
- excessive hunger
- depression loss of energy/fatigue
- dizziness
- stomach or bowel problems
- headaches, sweating
- insomnia, (not being able to sleep)
- heart palpitations
- tremors having a strong desire to smoke again.
Tell the children that It would be pretty bad to have to go through any
of these symptoms, but when you try to give up using nicotine, you may
suffer through a combination of them.
Ask, "What are tobacco
companies giving away when they offer free samples through the mail or
multi-packs for the price of one?
Useful quote:
"All good drug dealers know that
in the beginning when you are trying
to get people hooked, you give the stuff away."
How does advertising work?
Use print ads to illustrate methods of advertising. These include:
- association - suggests that you can be like the person in the ad (having fun, appealing, in control, rugged, independent)
- comparison - says the product is better than others ( Winston cigarettes claim they have "no additives" fooling people into thinking they are healthier)
- rewards - offers free prizes if you use the product
- factual- makes factual sounding claims about product
- testimonial -personal stories about product success
- bandwagon - suggests that everyone is using the product
- repetition - repeats the same imges, phrases, or slogans which eventually consumers start to believe (Just do it!)
- cool humor - entertains you for a moment; the makers of the product know how to make you laugh (frogs for beer)
Have the children collect magazines containing tobacco ads. Divide the
class into groups and have them select an ad they would like to make truthful.Discuss
what message the tobacco companies is giving through the ad. Then talk
about ways the children can make the ad truthful. The group group may
want to use the theme, picture, or slogan from the original ad to creat
a parody that tells the truth about tobacco. You may have them cut and
paste pictures or simply draw their own versions. For samples of ads,
go to True Ads.
To think about
In the 1940s a tobacco scientist had to stop a series of experiments
that were intended to find out how much irritation tobacco-smoke causes
to living tissue. He had to stop the experiments because "tobacco tar
was the most toxic substance he had ever seen." A single drop of tobacco
extract he placed on rabbits' eyes caused massive sores and complete loss
of the eyes. Do you think people should have been told about these experiments?
Why do you think the tobacco companies hid the results?
Smoking makes you look bad! It causes yellow "nicotine stains" on the teeth, lips, and fingers. It causes wrinkles around the mouth and on the lips, you know from all the sucking on the cigarettes. Wrinkles aren't limited to these places. Smoking causes them all over your body. If this isn't bad enough, smoking makes you smell bad. Use what you have just learned to draw a picture of what you might look like as a smoker twenty years from now.
Make a tar jar
Supplies: glass measuring cup, one caulk-style tube of tar from home improvement center or a jar of blackstrap molasses from supermarket, paper plate, cotton swab
Directions:
- Measure out one cup of tar and pour it into a measuring cup.
- Using the cotton swab, smear some of the "tar" onto the paper plate.
- What is the consistency of the tr or tar subsitiute? What effect does it have on your fingertip or on the plate? What effect might tar have on your mouth, teeth, lungs.
For class presentation:
Tar is one of the 40 know carcinogens (substance that causes cancer) in tobacco products.
The average smoker inhales about one cup of tar per year. Because of its sticky consistency and the reduced ability of the smoker's lungs to expel impurities, tha may remain in the lungs for long time.
Tar paralyzes the hairlike structures called "cilia" inside
the bronchial tubes. Cilia protect the lungs by sweeping out mucus, impurities,
and germs. How do you think the lungs are affected if the cilia are out
of order? How would you describe the effects of tar on the teeth?
Life in a fish
bowl
Supplies: 1 fish bowl, water, 3 drops of food coloring, Fact Sheet on Environmental Tobacco Smoke.
Directions: Fill the fish bowl with water. Brainstorm with your group about ways to keep half of the water in the fishbowl clean while dropping food coloring into the other half.
Drop the food coloring into the water.
Class presentation
Environmental tobacco smoke pollutes the air for everyone. The EPA
has designated environmental tobacco smoke as the most prevalent indoor
air pollutant. Tobacco smoke is a Class A carcinogen, (cancer causing)
in the same class as asbestors. You might recall that workers wear protective
suits and oxygen tanks when removing asbestos from old school buildings.
Use your fish bowl as an illustration of what happens when a facility allows smoking. Is it possible to maintain clean air without a separate heating, air conditioning, and ventilation system? Remember, the emissions from just one cigarette or cigar remain in the air for five hours.
Think of places that you like to or have to go that are not smokefree.
BB Demonstration
A good way to help children as well as adults understand the number of
deaths that are caused every day from tobacco related illnesses due to
tobacco use is to show them through a BB demonstration. (C.O.S.T. has
used this activity at workshops as well as at council meetings to help
people understand the devasting effects of tobacco uses)
You'll need a package of BBs from a sporting goods store (1,500 bb's for about $2.50) and a metal can.
You might want to start the demonstration with a personal story if you
have one to share about how tobacco use has affected you. (If you have
a loved one who has suffered, etc.) Then ask the audience how many of
them have experienced pain - loss, because of a tobacco related illness.
Ask the audience to close their eyes and imagine that this sound (drop
one bead) represents the sound of one human life. Slowly drop the following
amounts of beads into the pot after reading each of the following statistics
regarding early (unnatural, abnormal) loss of life.
Allow enough silence after the last statistic for the audience to absorb
its meaning.
about 16 Americans will die from crack, cocaine, and heroin
overdose.
Creating a "Show of Hands" banner people to express their feelings
about tobacco use. Many of the people who placed handprints on our banners,
placed them there in memory of loved ones they had lost due to a tobacco
related illness. Some wrote warnings to young people, others, especially
children wrote of their concern for a loved one who presently smokes.
The banner is a visible way of sharing concern, a way of sharing grief and frustration over a business whose products take those we love from us too soon.
Material:
- Canvas or some other flexible, durable material for banner. We used a 15' piece of Tyvek material from Dupont, but others have used sheets or canvas.You can also use poster boards. (note: material should have grommets placed along the top if you wish to display your banner.)
- Tempura Paints - in a variety of colors in one pint size bottles. (You may use magic markers to trace hands, if you don't want to be bothered with paint.)
- Disposable aluminum pie tins or other containers to hold paint.
- Handi-wiipes or other moist hand towels to clean paint off hands.
- Enough tables to accommodate the length and width of banners while imprinting hands and writing messages. (Paint will take time to dry, so the banner can not be moved around while painting on it).
Objectives:
- Participants will have the opportunity to leave painted handprints on canvas to demonstrate their support for change or to commemorate their losses due to tobacc/nicotine related illness.
- Participants will have the opportunity to voice their thoughts and feelings by writing any sentiment or message on the canvas.
- The schools and communities will have theopportunity to see the tribute/memorial and read the messages and sentiments.