ACTIVITIES FOR STUDENTS

These educational materials are designed to complement this year's safe prom celebration campaign. The cross-curricular activities offer ideas to enhance and extend the learning and understanding of issues surrounding alcohol and teenagers. Students can work individually, in groups or as a whole class - adapt the activities to fit the needs of your students. Please feel free to download and photocopy these educational materials.

Activities for Students

“Underage drinking is a serious problem.”

Suggest how this statement might affect one of the following:

Teenagers
Friends
Parents
Family members
Teachers
Doctor
Paramedic
Police officer
Lawyer
Adults

Presenting… 10 Prom Tips for Students

Working with your group, read 10 Prom Tips for Students. Select one of the tips. Analyze the information and determine ways you could deliver this message to your class. Choose the most effective way to present the tip. Be creative. 

Party!

Plan the perfect alcohol-free prom party.
...menu, refreshments, decorations, entertainment, music, location, ...

As the host, you have many responsibilities. What steps would you take to make sure your party is fun as well as safe for your guests?

Concoct your own Mocktails contest

Come up with your own recipes for delicious alcohol-free drinks. Give your concoctions creative names. Serve your drinks to the class and enjoy.
Check out the Mocktails guide and the Mocktails student information sheet in Alcohol Facts for Students for some ideas. 

Promise!

Keep a promise to your friends to stay safe and enjoy your celebrations. Create a promise for you and your friends to sign. Consider what’s important to you, what qualities you value in your friends, what experiences you want to share in your life. Check out the Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving (OSAID)’s “Call-me Contract” at www.osaid.org/resources/call-me.html, or the “I promise” contract www.ipromiseprogram.com on the Web sites for Teens.

Your Safe Prom Media Campaign

Create your own safe prom poster. Think about the message, who you're trying to reach, how you're going to deliver the message.

Produce PA announcements for safe prom.

Write slogans for radio ads to promote safe prom celebrations.

Write the script and create the storyboard for a television commercial to convince teens that you don't need alcohol to have fun.

Organize!

Plan an assembly to promote SafeGrad. Investigate resources in the community that could help present the information you want to cover, for example Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving (OSAID), Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD Canada), police officers, paramedics, public health officials, local LCBO store manager (to talk about programs in place to ensure that alcohol is sold to those of legal age), etc.

Influence

Many factors affect the way we feel and act about things. Examine the following list and determine how powerful an influence each item has on your attitudes and behaviour towards alcohol. Give examples.

Books
Newspapers
Magazines
Web
Radio
Television
Films
Personal experiences
Other people's opinions
Your friends
Your cultural group
School
Lessons taught at school
Others

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

We often admire the glamorous lives of actors, musicians, athletes. We look up to them and copy the way they dress, talk, act. But sometimes some of these “stars” get into trouble with drugs and alcohol, and are involved in crashes resulting from impairment, bad judgement, risky behaviour, all with dire consequences. 

Why do you think some actors, musicians and athletes have problems with drugs and alcohol?

Name celebrities who you've heard have chosen not to drink. Why do you think they might have made that choice?

Exposure

How does the media affect your attitudes about alcohol? How often do you think you are exposed to messages about alcohol in the media? Keep track for a week noting the exposure on TV, movies, radio, commercials, games, magazines. How does this exposure affect the way you and your friends think and feel about alcohol? Analyze the examples that you were exposed to.

Advertising to prevent underage drinking and drinking and driving

There have been many advertising campaigns designed to prevent drinking and driving. Describe some of the advertising that you have seen. Do you think these ads are effective? What makes them effective? What would make these ads more effective? Design your own advertisement to stop drinking and driving and discuss it with your friends and parents.

Have you seen ads designed to prevent underage people from drinking? Do you think these ads are effective? What makes them effective? What would make these ads more effective? Design an ad to discourage underage drinking among kids your age. Present your ad to your class to see if your message is effective and convincing.

Publicize!

Research and design a campaign to publicize the information and resources available to help you make smart choices about alcohol and drugs. Refer to Making Smart Choices, Common Myths about Alcohol, Alcohol: the Real Deal, and Alcohol Problems: Where to Get Help.

Create a poster.
Write an article for the school paper.
Record a public service announcement.
Review one of the Web sites listed in Web sites for Teens.
Write a poem, song, rap, jingle, soliloquy…
And other ways...

What if...

Create a role-playing game. List situations where you might have to make smart choices about alcohol. (For example, someone who has been drinking offers to drive you home.) Write the scenarios on file cards, one situation per card. Shuffle the deck. Working in pairs, each group picks a card. Decide how you would react in that situation described on your card. Take turns acting out the scenarios. Present the scenarios to the class. Where necessary, have some of your classmates play the other required roles in your scenario.

Role reversal

See the situation through different eyes. Using the scenarios created for What if..., approach the situation from the point of view of someone who cares about the one making the smart choice. (For example, a friend, a parent, a teacher). Now play that role describing the reasons you want the teen to make those smart choices.

Book a chapter

Set up an Ontario Students Against Impaired Driving (OSAID) chapter in your school. Check out the Web site at www.osaid.org.

Make it a date

Organize an NSAID – National Students Against Impaired Driving Day. Visit www.studentlifeeducation.com for information.

Survey says...

Using the Common Myths about Alcohol, conduct an informal survey to determine what people really know and think they know about alcohol. Include adults as well as teenagers in your study. And let them know the true facts about alcohol after they've given their answers.

Entertainment tonight

Imagine you are a reporter for an entertainment show or magazine. Describe the plans your school has to make this year's prom a night to remember knowing that you don't need alcohol to have fun.

Points of view

Find a newspaper article describing the consequences of underage drinking. Or visit MADD Canada's Web site (www.madd.ca) for stories of real life tragedies.

Identify the people in the story and consider their different circumstances and explanations of what happened and why. Write a first person account of the story for each person involved, from each individual’s point of view.

Public Service Announcement

Produce a commercial or video to show the dangers of consuming alcohol underage. Create the storyboard, write the script. If you have the equipment, produce your piece.

Risky business

Imagine you are a 32-year-old who regularly binged on alcohol as a teenager. Describe what your life is like now. Suggest health, social, legal problems you might be facing.

Mirror, mirror...

What if someone looked in the mirror after years of binge-drinking? What would they see? How might they feel physically, emotionally, psychologically?

French scientists have developed a mirror that will predict what someone will look like after five years of binge-drinking. As reported in the Globe and Mail on Thursday, February 3, 2005:

French scientists devise a sobering reflection

French scientists have developed a mirror that will predict the ugly truth, five years on. They have fashioned a looking glass that will offer a reflection of the future, after years of binge-drinking and junk food have taken their toll, according to the magazine New Scientist today. Researchers at Accenture Technology, in Sophia Antipolis near Nice, have devised a display linked to a set of cameras and powerful image-processing technology.

“Technology can be quite persuasive,” laboratory director Martin Illsey told the magazine. “There will be several options for the visual feedback the user gets, ranging from weight gain to modifying skin tone, to increasing the shadows under the eyes.” 

Describe the changes that someone would see after years of binge-drinking and the changes that they wouldn't be able to see.

Questions for DISCUSSION, RESEARCH OR ESSAY

• You don't need alcohol to have fun. Discuss.

• Underage drinking is illegal and therefore should not be displayed in movies or on television. Discuss as a class.

• Name movies that glorify underage drinking. Why do they include this as a plot line? How do you as a viewer react to this portrayal? How does this on screen behaviour influence your thoughts and attitudes towards underage drinking? Discuss as a class.

• Teenagers think they are invincible, nothing bad will ever happen to them. Why do you think teens feel this way? Do you think this is a true statement?

• You can't die from drinking. Discuss this statement. Support your answer with facts, not opinion.

• When you host a party you have responsibilities to your guests. Research legal liability. Check out HOST – LCBO’s guide for responsible entertaining and MADD Canada’s Web site at www.madd.ca.