Interactive Projects

Overview
In this activity, groups of students visit sites on the World Wide Web that provide text and visual information about the dangers associated with the use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs. Using this informatio—as well as that found at a site devoted to Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) basics—students create a Tobacco, Alcohol, and Drug Awareness page to be added to the school Web site. If your school does not have such a site, students may share their findings either in an in-class multimedia presentation or as a schoolwide public service announcement.

Objectives

• To learn through images and text found on the World Wide Web about the health risks associated with the use of tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs, especially among teens.
• To share information on these health risks with other teens through a student-designed Web page or multimedia presentation.

Getting Started
Introduce the activity by clipping colorful ads for alcohol products from magazines and placing these along a chalk rail in the classroom. Invite students to browse through the "gallery" you have created. Ask them to describe the images and text used by the advertisers and to identify what messages the advertisers are attempting to communicate to the public. Discuss with students the realities of alcohol use and the health risks and problems it causes. Ask: Is alcohol the only substance that can impair a person's judgment or lead to tragic results? Elicit that drugs and tobacco also fit this description. Point out that alcohol and nicotine--the addictive substance contained in tobacco products--are themselves drugs.

Classroom Follow-up
If the classroom computer is hooked up to a school network, encourage students to advertise the presence of their Web page. As an alternative to the project, or if the school has no dedicated Web site, you may ask groups to create a multimedia presentation of information they have gathered. Students may alternately work together to write a public service announcement, which may then be broadcast over the school public address system.