By completing a graffiti wall,
students will have the opportunity to expose some of their
beliefs around the effects and the normative aspects of
alcohol and cannabis use.
- Post four
pieces of flip chart paper around the class and label
them “Alcohol effects,” “Cannabis
effects,” “What people my age are
doing,” and “What students in higher grades
are doing.”
-
Ask the
students to go to each of the pages and answer the
following corresponding questions:
- What do
you know about how drinking alcohol affects you?
Include physical effects, psychological effects, and
social effects.
- What do
you know about how cannabis affects you? Include
physical effects, psychological effects, and social
effects.
- What do
you believe other grade 7 students are doing when it
comes to alcohol or other drug use? What percent have
tried alcohol? What percent have tried cannabis? How
often do you think they use alcohol? Cannabis? How
much are they using?
- What do you believe older students in the higher grades are doing when it comes to alcohol or other drug use? What percent have tried cannabis? How often do you think they use alcohol? Cannabis? How much are they using?
- What do
you know about how drinking alcohol affects you?
Include physical effects, psychological effects, and
social effects.
- When
the students have
written everything down and returned to their seats,
spend a few moments reading some of the items on each
sheet. Ask the class if they believe that the items read
out loud are true or not.
- Explain to
the students that the next class will be spent on finding
out the facts about how alcohol and cannabis can affect
teenagers.
Alternative instructions: To avoid the potential chaos of having many students moving around the room, one field-test teacher had the students work in four groups and circulated the four pieces of paper among the groups. Each group had the opportunity to add to what previous groups had contributed. Finally, the class reviewed all the comments together.