SEMO STUDENTS GIVE YOUNGSTERS REASONS THEY SHOULDN'T SMOKE

SCOTT CITY -- Students at St. Joseph Catholic School got a multimedia lesson in the hazards of tobacco use Thursday.

A five-student team from the "Contemporary Drug Use" course at Southeast Missouri State University gave a presentation to 11 fifth- and sixth-graders in an attempt to keep the elementary students from trying tobacco products.

"We specifically targeted this age group because we wanted to catch them before they got into the seventh grade," said Regina Meyers, one of the presenters. "That's the age that most kids try cigarettes for the first time, and we're trying to catch them before they even take the first try."

Meyers, Robert Farr, Junya Suganuma, Karen Redfearn and Christie Kesteir interacted with the students using a variety of media forms. Overhead transparencies and printed material were used to provide factual information and statistics to the students.

A video was also shown to show students the effects of tobacco advertising. The video used a storyline to discuss contemporary issues such as the addictiveness of nicotine, the use of professional athletes and cartoon figures to promote tobacco products and the use of advertising to entice young people, women and minorities to start smoking.

"I learned a lot from researching and doing this," Meyers said. "You can see that role models really do affect the way children think about smoking. I think the video really went into that."

The students seemed most affected by one of several physical demonstrations the team provided. Many of the students groaned and gasped after performing a straw demonstration, which showed them how emphysema sufferers feel when they breathe.

After jogging in place for 30 seconds, they were given a coffee stirrer and told to inhale through the straw as they pinched their noses.

"It doesn't feel good, does it?" Kesteir asked the students. "You won't see the people in the advertisements breathing like that."

Team members said much of the research information used in their presentation was provided by the American Lung Association. They wore T-shirts and distributed buttons and information packets furnished by the organization.

Meyers said although the presentation was done as a class requirement, team members also felt a moral obligation to teach younger students about the hazards of smoking.

"We'll go back to the classroom and present this program to our classmates," she said. "That's the only reason for doing this, though. This whole thing is about going out into the community and making a difference."