Students Working Against Tobacco
Scripted 45 Minute Tobacco Presentation
August 25, 2014
In Advance:
1. Make a Jar of Tar for display during the class presentation. (See recipe below.)
2. Print one copy for each student of the What’s Your Poison? brochure.
Have 4 copies of Death of a Lung poster & It Will Never Happen to Me poster.
Print 1 copy of Lung Facts: The Good News for presenter.
3. Place one copy of the Sucked In poster and Just Say No poster in a prominent
place for the presentation. (Other posters can be placed around the school.
Laminating posters will help them last longer.)
4. Get these You Tube videos/ Power Point presentations ready to show in class:
Tar Extracted from 400 Cigarettes (4:20)
Best Video on Smoking Cigarettes (4:55)
Quit Smoking Commercial 2007 (0:30)
The Bryan Curtis Story – optional (3:00)
Youth: You’re the Target (6:00) or Barb Tarbox (9:12)
5. Have some drinking straws and music ready to play for Can You Breathe activity.
Jar of Tar Recipe
250 ml Corn Syrup (Karo or Great Value brand at Walmart)
250 ml Molasses
Dirt (a small amount just to give a cruddy look)
Cigarette butts (4-5)
Water (to thin a little)
Plastic Jar (with screw on top that can be glued on to prevent leaking)
Jar of Tar Label
A YEAR’S WORTH
OF TAR
from smoking
half a pack
of cigarettes a day!
Part 1: What’s in a Cigarette?
Introduction
Good morning, we are the S.W.A.T. team from (name of school). Does anyone know
what S.W.A.T. stands for? My name is (insert name) and with me today, we have
(insert names). Today we are here to share some facts about smoking and why
choosing to live smoke free is a great way to go.
Did you know that most youth in our province DO NOT Smoke?
In fact, 88% of young people in NL are living smoke-free. So if someone says”
everybody is doing it”, that’s just not true.
Here are a few of the benefits of living smoke-free:
Better lung function for playing sports and being active
No yellow fingers
No smelling like an ashtray
More money.
Does anyone know what’s actually contained in a cigarette? (Have students make
some suggestions.) Pass out brochure, What’s Your Poison? And ask students if any of
which other chemicals in cigarettes surprise them. Show the poster, Sucked In.
There are a lot of hidden chemicals hiding in the tobacco in cigarettes, over 4000 in fact.
Here are just a few of the chemicals contained in cigarettes:
Arsenic – Rat poison.
Nicotine – This is what makes tobacco products very addictive and difficult to give up.
Formaldehyde – It causes cancer and is used to preserve dead bodies.
Tar – Tar is the black stuff that they put in the roads to fill cracks. The tar from
cigarettes coats the lungs causing inflammation and cancer.
Ammonia – This helps a smoker absorb more nicotine and makes cigarettes even more
addictive keeping you hooked on smoking. It is used in toilet bowl cleaners.
Chocolate, Strawberry, and Vanilla – to make it all taste better.
Nicotine occurs naturally in a tobacco plant. A cigarette’s main function is to be a
delivery system for the addictive drug, nicotine. Surveys tell us that over 70% of
smokers want to quit but can’t because of the addictive nature of the nicotine.
We have only told you about a few of the 4000 chemicals contained in a cigarette. We
would like to now show you a brief video to see how much tar would be in 20 packs of
cigarettes. (Show the You Tube video, Tar Extracted from 400 Cigarettes).
Conclusion of Part 1:
After the video, pass around a Jar of Tar. This Jar of Tar that shows how much tar
would be to taken into a smoker’s lungs in one year if he smoked a half a pack of
cigarettes a day. Hold up Jar of Phlegm. This Jar shows how much phlegm a person
with COPD would have to clear from their lungs every day just to keep breathing.
Would you pay somebody ten dollars for a jar of these chemicals? When
somebody buys a pack of cigarettes, that’s exactly what they’re paying for.
Part 2: Costs of Smoking
Maybe you have been thinking about taking up smoking. Before you take your first puff,
you’d better ask yourself, “What’s smoking really going to cost me?”
Costs to your Health:
•
If you smoke you’re 20 times more likely to die of lung cancer and more likely to
have a heart attack or stroke.
•
Smoking destroys your ability to breathe and reduces your athletic ability.
•
Every cigarette takes away 7 minutes of your life. For smokers, that can be an
average of 14 years taken from your life.
•
Tobacco kills 129 Canadians every day. That’s more than 45,000 people each
year in Canada from tobacco-related diseases. Don’t let yourself become a statistic!
Cost to your Looks:
Smoking stains your teeth, tongue, and fingers, makes your breath stink, and leads to
premature wrinkles and gray hair. These results are not pretty.
Costs to your Wallet:
The average smoker smokes a pack a day, each pack costing around $10.
Do you know how much a pack-a-day smoker would spend in one year? ($3650)
In 5 years? ($18,250)
That’s a lot of money for a habit that could end up killing you or the people you love.
What are some of the things you could buy with the money you saved if you did not
smoke? (Take suggestions.)
Costs to your Friends and Family:
Second-hand smoke refers to the smoke inhaled from a cigarette by people who are not
smoking but who are near a person who is smoking. Second-hand smoke contains the
same poisons that a smoker inhales. Diseases caused by second hand smoke can kill.
More than 1000 non-smokers die each year in Canada from lung cancer and heart
disease caused by second-hand smoke. If you smoke, everyone around you will have
to pay too.
Smoking can rob you of your money, your health, and your looks. If you don’t smoke,
don’t start. Smoking just isn’t worth what it’s going to cost you. Say “No” to tobacco.
Part 3: Health Effects of Smoking
Now that we have shown you what’s in cigarettes, we would like to now demonstrate
what they can do to you and your health. The toxic gases and tar in tobacco damage
the lungs. Tar particles make the lung turn black. Show Death of a Lung poster or It Will
Never Happen to Me or Death of a Lung Model. The more tobacco smoked, the more
the lungs are damaged.
Show 2 You Tube videos, Best Video on Smoking Cigarettes and Quit Smoking
Commercial 2007.
List some of the health benefits of quitting smoking as listed in the brochure, Lung
Facts: The Good News.
Now let’s do an activity to see how smoking can affect your health.
Can You Breathe?
Materials:
Drinking straws cut into 3” sections
Upbeat music
Caution:
Be sure participants have no health restrictions such as asthma before they take part in
the exercise. If any student experiences difficulty with breathing, they can stop this
activity anytime.
Introduction:
Cigarette smoking is the major cause of lung diseases such as Emphysema, Chronic
Bronchitis, and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), diseases that slowly
destroys a person’s ability to breathe. People with these lung diseases are often left
gasping for breath. We are going to do an activity that will help you understand what it’s
like to have a chronic lung disease.
Activity: (This activity will demonstrate to the students that it is harder to breathe
through the straw after physical activity. Give each student a 3-inch section of a drinking
straw. Ask everyone to put the straws in their mouths and breathe only through the
straw. Students can pinch their noses to achieve this. Have them do this for one
minute. Now play some upbeat music and lead the group in a series of exercises until
they are huffing and puffing, i.e. dancing to music, jogging on the spot for 60 seconds,
jumping jacks. SWAT students need to move around as well to encourage students)
After 60 seconds, turn off the music and breathe through the straw again while pinching
their noses. Get rid of the straws when they are running out of oxygen or feeling lightheaded. Remove the straw and resume normal breathing.)
Suggestion: (The straws are frequently a distraction for students. Once this activity is
completed, have somebody collect all the straws for disposal.)
Discussion: How did it feel breathing through the straw? People with emphysema feel
like that after walking from their bedroom to the kitchen. A person with emphysema,
bronchitis, or COPD often has to keep an oxygen bottle nearby or breathe with the help
of oxygen tubes inserted into the nose. Smokers have to work even harder to do these
physical activities because smoking strains their heart and lungs. 80% of all people with
emphysema get it from smoking cigarettes. Smoking also causes 90% of all lung
cancers and increases the risk of heart disease. Remember this: When you can’t
breathe, nothing else matters.
Questions for Discussion
1. Most people today know about the health risks of tobacco. Why do you think
people still use tobacco?
2. What would help someone stay smoke-free?
Optional:
Caution: Consider showing the 3:00 You Tube video The Bryan Curtis Story to students
about a young man named Bryan Curtis who smoked. This is probably best used for an
older group of students in senior high school.
Part 4: Peer Pressure
Peer Pressure
People today know how damaging cigarettes are to their lungs and their health. Why
do young people start smoking in the first place? Here are some possible answers:
to be cool,
to fit in with the group,
to calm the nerves,
to prevent weight gain,
people think it will never happen to me.
People often start smoking as a result of friends encouraging them to try it. A friend
lights up and asks you if you want a puff. This will likely happen for each of you here
today. You need to be ready for when it does happen at a party, at a bus stop, off the
school grounds, or where ever people hang out with the crowd.
It may be difficult to refuse a cigarette, but you need to be able to say “No” with some
excuse that you have ready. It’s very difficult to turn away your buddy.
What would you say if somebody asked you to have a smoke this Friday night?
(Give students a few minutes to discuss amongst themselves.)
Here are some of the best suggestions we have heard:
1. Make a joke of it. Say something quick and witty. “Yeah, just what I want, stinky
clothes and bad breath” or “I’d rather do something safe like skydiving”.
2. Use the health and sports approach. “No, I play basketball and smoking would
really slow me down.”
3. Exit the situation. Just say “No” and leave.
Do you have any other ways to get out of these situations? (Take suggestions and
compare to suggestions on Just Say No poster.) You know, of course, that once you
start smoking, it is very addictive and extremely difficult to quit. According to some
doctors, it’s more difficult than heroine.
What works best for you?
And remember the majority of youth DO NOT smoke, 88% are living smoke-free!
All schools are smoke- free properties.
The recreation facilities of most towns in this province are 100% smoke-free.
Many businesses and apartment buildings have gone smoke-free.
People today know what harm tobacco does to smokers and to those nearby. Choose
to live smoke free.
Wrap-Up
Your age group is one that tobacco companies are targeting to be their future smokers
and generate future profits.
85% of smokers start before their 19th birthday.
Tobacco causes more deaths than AIDS, car accidents, plane crashes, murders,
and suicides combined.
Tobacco companies need to replace the smokers that manage to quit and
replace those that DIE. You are their only source of replacement smokers.
You are their target. Say “No” to tobacco.
“Tobacco companies are like cockroaches. They love the dark and they cause
disease. A thief will demand your money or your life. Tobacco companies take
both.” (Rob Cunningham, Canadian Cancer Society)
To conclude, show the Power Point presentation Youth: You’re the Target (6:00) or the
You Tube video Barb Tarbox (9:12). Caution: The Barb Tarbox video is very emotional.
This is probably best used for an older group of students in junior or senior high school.
It is recommended that the teacher be present for any discussion of this video.
Any questions?
Other Suggestions:
Popsicle Stick Cemetery
Tobacco Quiz
Games:
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?
Tobacco Jeopardy
Tobacco Trivia
Word Games and Puzzles
Sandwich Boards: Taking It to the Streets
(Contact Bill Allan to borrow 709-637-4021)
Poster Display
(posters in schools already)
Are You Smarter than a Smoker?
Coloring Book
Smoker’s Helpline
For more suggestions, go to http://web.wnlsd.ca/student_health/
and follow the link to Students Working against Tobacco
or contact Bill Allan at 709-637-4021 or [email protected].