Smoke Screens: From Tobacco Outrage to Media Activism

Free for educators in Dutchess County!

This project was funded by County dollars through the Dutchess County Children's Services Council Children's Health Initiative.

Children’s Media Project (CMP) is excited to present this interactive and engaging curriculum, Smoke Screens: From Tobacco Outrage to Media Activism . This curriculum includes a textbook and resource manual which covers the health risks of cigarettes, the manipulation of cigarette advertising, and creative and empowering ways that youth can actively prevent smoking. Smoke Screens details the effects of cigarettes on the body, the ingredients in a cigarette, and the problems of addiction. It also provides detailed information on how to decode media in order to show students how to be aware and resist the manipulation of the advertising industry.

All of this information is presented in a fun and accessible way. Using the textbook, students actively engage in tobacco prevention. We show students how to make their own testimonials, poems, letters, public service announcements (PSAs) , counter marketing ads, and warning labels. Youth-made examples appear throughout the textbook.

Smoke Screens gives the facts so readers can make informed decisions. It shows young people how to view critically advertisements so they are able to sift through the blitz of contemporary media. And, as the title suggests, media activism is an intrinsic component of the curriculum as students are encouraged to respond to the current tobacco epidemic with their own voices. Thus, Smoke Screens encourages students to channel their outrage to actively take steps to become activists.

The Smoke Screens curriculum and textbook is written for an 8th grade reading level but will work with 6th-12th graders, meeting NY State Standards in Health, Math, English, and Art. The full color textbook is 144 pages and the 128 page black and white Resource Manual includes many reproducible worksheets, tests, vocabulary lists and other handouts for students and teachers.

Children's Media Project has taught Smoke Screens workshops in Health, Art, and Life Skills classes in the Poughkeepsie Middle School system as well as with youth ages 8-19 in workshops with various community-based organizations. Smoke Screens has been used in over eight school districts in the Hudson Valley. Most recently, Children's Media Project offered Smoke Screens-based workshops to the Girl Scouts of Dutchess County in Poughkeepsie and Dover Plains.

Praise for Smoke Screens

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS

TEXTBOOK PREVIEW

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