Each day, America’s teenagers are bombarded with misleading messages about drugs. Glamorized by media and endorsed by peers, the consequences of drug use and experimentation are dangerously disguised, and often hidden altogether. The reality is that drug use can alter a teen’s life forever. That’s why every student should be given the tools to make a decision against using drugs - and the best place to give them those tools is your classroom.
This resource is lesson 11. To access videos and materials: Project Alert.com
We spend more time than ever using media and everywhere we turn there are messages telling us how we should look that can make us feel less confident about our appearance. While we’re probably not going to use fewer media, we can protect our self-image and body confidence from media’s narrow-body ideals that reinforce thinness for women and muscularity for men. It’s all about asking the right questions.
What are your automatic reactions when you think about anxiety, depression, alcohol, exercise, eating, or persons with mental illness?
At Project Implicit Health (PIH), you can measure your thoughts about mental and physical health that are difficult to consciously control. The tests require less than 15 minutes and you will receive feedback about your performance and learn more about your automatic thoughts.
Body image refers to how people see themselves. Distorted body image (also called negative body image) refers to an unrealistic view of how someone sees their body. Like eating disorders, it is seen most commonly in women, but many men also suffer from the disorder.
You begin forming your perceptions of your body’s attractiveness, health, acceptability, and functionality in early childhood. This body image continues to form as you age and receive feedback from peers, family members, coaches, etc.
Personality traits such as perfectionism and self-criticism can also influence the development of a negative internalized image of your body.
This is the Project ALERT kick-off lesson. Activities 1 and 2 establish the tone and set the foundation for an open and supportive classroom environment. In Activity 3, students are motivated to want to resist pressure to use drugs by actively participating in small groups where they list and discuss the reasons why people do and do not use drugs. Comparisons between alcohol and marijuana (Activity 4) demonstrate the great similarity between the reasons for use and nonuse of marijuana and alcohol. The class discussion of the lists and the video "Let’s Talk About Marijuana" in Activity 5 allow for myths to be corrected and for additional information to be added.
This is a long lesson, so pacing is critical. While it is not essential that students know every reason for using or not using drugs, it is essential that wrong information be corrected from the lists.
Through this Family Health History lesson, students will understand the value of having a family health history. Students will learn interview techniques to gather information about their own family health history. The goal is to help students assess their own risk factors and to make informed decisions
This resource is lesson 2. To access videos and lesson materials go to: https://www.projectalert.com/account
This resource is lesson 3.
This resource is lesson 5. To access videos and lesson materials: https://www.projectalert.com/account
This resource is lesson 6. To access videos and lesson materials: https://www.projectalert.com/account
This resource is lesson 7. To access video resources and lesson materials: https://www.projectalert.com/account
This resource is lesson 8. To access video resources and lesson resources: https://www.projectalert.com/account
This resource is lesson 9. To access video resources and lesson materials: https://www.projectalert.com/account
Each year, NIDA-funded researchers at the University of Michigan survey students in 8th, 10th, and 12th grades on their behaviors and attitudes about substance use. The survey results are released the same year the data are collected. These are the results.
Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is a chronic relapsing brain disorder characterized by an impaired ability to stop or control alcohol use despite adverse social, occupational, or health consequences. AUD ranges from mild to severe. Underage drinking is drinking alcohol before a person turns age 21, which is the minimum legal drinking age in the United States. Underage drinking is a serious problem, as you may have seen from your friends or your own experiences. Alcohol is the most commonly used substance of use among young people in America, and drinking when you’re underage puts your health and safety at risk.
Methamphetamine—known as “meth”— is a laboratory-made, white, bitter-tasting powder. Sometimes it's made into a white pill or a shiny, white, or clear rock called crystal. Methamphetamine use can quickly lead to addiction. That’s when people seek out the drug over and over, even after they want to stop and even after it has caused damage to their health and other parts of their life.
A Jeopardy-style game of drug facts.
The Mind Matters series is a valued resource for tens of thousands of teachers. Each booklet is devoted to a specific drug or drug group. Hard copies of the booklets in English can be ordered for free, and both English and Spanish booklets are available online as printable PDFs. The accompanying Teacher’s Guide, which includes background information and activities to enhance students’ learning, is available online in a printable PDF format.
This resource is a collection of animated videos that discuss the effects on the brain and body when using specific types of drugs.
This resource is a test bank of assessment items in True/False, Multiple Choice, and Short Answer formats that are provided for each of the Project ALERT Core (Lessons 1-11). You can choose from these items to create lesson-based assessments, a Project ALERT unit test, and/or for part of a course exam that may include an assessment of the students' success using the Project ALERT curriculum.
This fact sheet for teens provides facts about opioids. It describes short- and long-term effects and lists signs of opioid use. The fact sheet helps to dispel common myths about opioids. This is a free download and could be displayed in the classroom or used for class discussion.
This is a library of downloadable resources focused on the topic of cyberbullying. These resources are in PDF format and are easily downloadable. These resources are geared towards educators.
Rather than take the anti-bullying angle, this project has students use a medium of their choice to encourage and support others via positive prevention methods. This resource includes links to videos, articles, and other learning activities.
In the past decades, a dazzling number of studies have investigated the effects of old and new media on children and teens. These studies have greatly improved our understanding of why youth are so massively attracted to media. And they have also shown how children and teens can be affected by media, in positive and negative ways. Plugged In provides insight into the most important issues and debates regarding media, children, and teens.
Students will combine a study of facts regarding tobacco with a survey of their peers' attitudes and experiences to create a schoolwide smoking prevention campaign. The objective is to understand facts about smoking and use those facts to impact the entire school population.
This resource is informational material from the website Advocates for Youth. Young people in Alabama are at serious risk for unintended pregnancy, HIV, and STIs. The youth of color and LGBT youth are at even higher risk for negative sexual health outcomes. The resource provides health facts for adolescents in the state of Alabama. The statistics could help analyze the influence of external factors on health beliefs and behaviors.
The website also provides other resources to further enrich your lesson plan.
This alignment results from the ALEX Health/PE COS Resource Alignment Summit.
Media can be a powerful force in shaping perceptions about products and our own consumption habits. During the early to mid 20th Century, cigarette advertising was pervasive and the use of it was high. In the 1970s, a wave of anti-smoking advertising was released which ultimately changed the public’s perception and use of tobacco. The media encouraged people to smoke and when scientists proved that smoking was harmful to the media, in turn, encouraged people to stop. In viewing these three clips from Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies, students will understand how media can influence the habits and attitudes of an audience.
Prescription Drug Safety is an innovative digital course that focuses on high school students, arming them with the knowledge and tools to make healthy, informed decisions. By empowering students with substance abuse prevention education at an early age, we can help the next generation stop opioid abuse.
Through interactive scenarios and self-guided activities, students learn about a range of topics, including the science of addiction, how to properly use and dispose of prescription drugs, and how to intervene when faced with a situation involving drug misuse.
Drinking in high school doesn’t just put students at risk; it threatens the ability of schools to achieve their educational objectives. AlcoholEdu® for High School takes a public health approach to alcohol education in schools, incorporating evidence-based prevention methods to create meaningful results.
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) causes people to believe that parts of their body look ugly. People with BDD spend hours focused on what they think is wrong with their looks. Many times a day, they do things to check, fix, cover up, or ask others about their looks. They focus on flaws that seem minor to others.
This can be tied directly to a unit on self-esteem and/or eating disorders.
Students take a quick oral quiz on television, advertising, and body image. Then they use an “Ad Decoder” (critical questions) to examine advertisements that are aimed at them. They also discuss how messages about body image can affect health.
This video describes the behavior patterns of school violence incidences. Interviews with violent offenders reveal school culture and peer influence as strong influences of their behavior. Recognition and warning signs of violent behavior pattern influences are described. In addition to examining the influences of behavior patterns of students considering violent attacks, this video recommends strategies to avoid violent or criminal activities in schools.
This activity is designed to open students' eyes to the consequences of binge drinking and bad choices. A secondary purpose is to have students use critical thinking skills to try to determine if the information given to them is credible.
This classroom resource is a video from PBS LearningMedia about using bad behavior online. In this video, students learn about bullying, trolling, and free speech on the internet. The internet is a powerful tool for communication, but it can sometimes be a double-edged sword. The internet can bring out the worst behavior in people, highlighting some of the cruelest and most hurtful aspects of humanity. Issues such as bullying online and trolling have garnered a lot of attention recently, prompting questions about who does and should, regulate the internet, and what free speech means online.
In this video segment from Understanding the Opioid Epidemic, students will learn the historical context behind the current opioid epidemic. Prior to the mid-90s, when pharmaceutical companies began telling physicians that opioid pain relievers were safe, the use of opioids to treat pain was limited. Teachers have access to various support materials on this site about the opioid epidemic.
