Escape the Vape in the Classroom
More than 2.5 million U.S. middle school and high school students reported
e-cigarette use in 2022 according to a study released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
The Escape the Vape Video Challenge is a 30 second PSA video for middle and high school students who want to bring attention to the dangers of vaping and spread the message to their peers. Bringing Escape the Vape into your classroom gives an opportunity to reach a greater amount of youth and educate them about vaping and how tobacco companies are targeting them. Sign up below to learn more.
Using Escape the Vape in the classroom?
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Tools and Resources
Tools
Resources
https://www.ansrmn.org/tobacco-101/ Tobacco 101: A Teacher's Guide to Anti-Tobacco Lesson Planning.
https://www.lung.org/quit-smoking/helping-teens-quit/e-cigarettes-schools E-cigarettes & Vaping: What Schools Should Know
https://therealcost.betobaccofree.hhs.gov/vapes FDA’s tobacco prevention campaign. Schools and teachers can take advantage of free print materials and web content from the campaign.
https://www.changetochill.org/ Offers free online mental health resources for teens designed to help them learn how to relax and integrate healthy habits into their lifestyle.
https://www.mylifemyquit.com/ A free and confidential way to quit smoking or vaping. Teens can text “Start My Quit” to 36072 to start.
Heather Maier: How she uses ETV in the classroom
The Escape the Vape Video Challenge, now entering its 4th year, asks Minnesota middle and high school students to create and submit 30-second public service announcement videos to educate their peers on the dangers of vaping. The popularity of the challenge has increased among students each year across the state of Minnesota. However, one teacher in particular, Heather Maier, from Hastings Middle School, has made it her mission to ensure her students understand the risks of vaping.
Heather has been teaching within the Hastings School District for the past sixteen years at both the high school and middle school. Most recently, she has been teaching Family Consumer Science to 8th grade students. She has been incorporating the Escape the Vape Video Challenge into her curriculum for the past three years, increasing her knowledge and understanding of the contest with each passing year.
The first day of her lesson plan involves sharing the details of the challenge with the students, identifying a call to action, and exploring the website while the next day is spent reviewing the rules of the contest. This is then followed by two days for the students to work on their videos and the final day involves sharing the videos with their classmates. Throughout this part of the curriculum, Heather has witnessed an increased energy level and excitement in the classroom.
Not only are the students sharing their videos with other classmates of Family Consumer Science, Heather assembled a group of students representing the student body who were eager to share vaping dangers with the rest of the middle school. The information was first modified to identify with a 5th grade audience and due to the success of the program, the 6th and 7th graders were also included in the presentations. In total, over 1,200 students were provided information about the dangers of vaping.
So you might ask, why is this so important and why is Heather going above and beyond? Vaping among teens is rapidly increasing and without proper guidance, will continue. As Heather highlighted, “If students don't understand the dangers of vaping and they don't start to care, I don’t think we will get out of this. It can become a bigger issue of chemical dependency and a lifelong struggle.” If one teacher is able to reach 1,200 students in one year, imagine how many more young adults can be educated if we all follow Heather’s example.