No Butts About It

Grade Level: 3-5
Academic Areas: Language Arts, Health
Duration of service: Semester Long
Character Virtues: Respect, Responsibility
Service Areas: Education/Tutoring, Human Services, Public Safety

Service Learning Project:

No Butts About It is a semester-long project that aims to decrease the occurrence of youth experimentation with smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke. Students will learn and practice persuasive writing, with a culminating activity of producing an anti-smoking/second-hand smoke commercial for local media. Through this ad, students will act as advocates in the community, trying to persuade community members to stop smoking and thereby reducing second-hand smoke.

Goals and Objectives

Academic

Learning Goal: Students will understand the dangers of smoking and second-hand smoke.
Standard: Health Standards 1 and 2
Learning Goal: Students will be able to form opinions and write persuasively about those opinions. Standard: ELA Standard 3

Service

Community need: An increased rate of young student experimentation with smoking.
Possible Community Partners: Local media, high school students, American Lung Association/American Cancer Society
Objective: To create public service commercials to raise awareness of the dangers associated with smoking and second-hand smoke.
Objective: Students will write persuasive letters to community members, asking them to sign an Anti-Second-Hand Smoking Contract written by the students.

Character

Virtue: Respect
Objective: Students will understand the need for courtesy toward others with regard to second-hand smoke.
Virtue: Responsibility
Objective: Students will take ownership of and be accountable for their decisions of whether or not to smoke.

Key Activities

Key Planning Activities

1. A speaker from the American Lung Association will come to the classroom to discuss the dangers/consequences of smoking and second-hand smoke.
2. Students will be taught the elements of persuasive writing and will be given the opportunity to practice them.

Key Service Activities

1. Students will write and produce television and radio commercials aimed at raising awareness of the dangers associated with smoking and second-hand smoke. The students will be aided by high school students and members of the local media.
2. Students will tutor younger students on the dangers of smoking and second-hand smoke, including ways to make healthy and responsible choices.
3. Students will write persuasive letters to community members, encouraging them to sign an Anti-Second-Hand Smoking Contract written by the students.

Key Reflection Activities

1. (oral – respect) Students will discuss the need to be respectful to yourself and others through not smoking and not contributing to second hand smoke.
2. (written) Students will write an essay describing the impact of the project on their community.
3. (performance – respect) Students will act out scenarios in which they make choices about whether to respect or disrespect the health of their bodies.

Demonstration Activity

Students will create and erect a community progress sign (similar to that of the United Way) that will track the progress of the Anti-Second Hand Smoking Contract. On the predetermined goal date, the students will sponsor an Anti-Smoking and Anti-Second Hand Smoking Picnic for those community members who have signed and abided by the contract.