E-cigarettes and vapes are the most popular tobacco products, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). And, it reports that roughly 1.6 million users attend either middle or high school. Today, students at Central Crossing High School are fighting against those statistics with a new initiative.
The student council initiative is bringing awareness of the health effects of vaping to their classmates. While it just began this past school year, many students are already working to find new ways to reach more students throughout the year.
Growing use
South-Western City Schools
The use of e-cigarettes has grown in the past decade and become embedded into the social spaces of many teens, while knowledge of the long-term effects has not. This spirals into major concerns for students who are non-users, especially when they are looking to help others.
“I try to teach the kids critical thinking skills by looking at sources and making sure they are good sources,” says Allison Hoffner, student council advisor and government teacher at Central Crossing. “‘How do you know the information that you’re getting is good? How do you fact check things?’… How do we get the kids to look at that kind of information and understand that?”
There are several ways the council plans to connect with their fellow students and one of them includes the daily school news videos.
“They’ve decided that they want to do an advertising campaign on the school news,” says Tiffany Fuller, English teacher at Central Crossing and current advisor for the student council. “They’re going to generate a video each month with different topics and different levels of seriousness. For example, one they want to craft would center around the financial impact of vaping, so I’m really looking forward to what they put together.”
Other efforts include placing flyers and posters around the school, particularly in known hotspots around campus for vaping.
They are also working to get feedback from other members of the student body using surveys and data to gauge what students want.
Setting goals
The goals the council plans to focus on include sharing information on how e-cigarettes can have a negative impact on health and decreasing the overall tobacco usage at Central Crossing.
South-Western City Schools
The student council isn’t alone in these objectives. The Student Issues Committee has been gaining connections with other student organizations, such as the theater department, in order to create higher-quality PSAs for their mission.
While the initiative may be in its early stages, the students behind this are very passionate and are working to find creative ways to help change their school culture.
“They are talking about things that are important to them and they see improvements for their peers,” says Meredith Ackerman, communications specialist at Central Crossing. “I think the bigger focus is that these students are really taking on this initiative and really trying to find a way to reach their peers in a way that makes the most sense to them.”
Elliot Fryman is an editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
