A recent San Diego Unified School District contest that tasked students with creating public service announcements about the hazards of drinking alcohol, smoking and using drugs yielded not just one local prize winner but two.<\/p>\n
And not only do they attend the same school, they are in the same class. And they\u2019re best friends.<\/p>\n
The contest, dubbed \u201cVoices for Change\u201d with a theme this year of \u201cBreak Free\/Breathe Free,\u201d provides students with a way to raise awareness about mental health and substance use while encouraging peers to make positive, healthy decisions, according to the school district.<\/p>\n
The contest, open to all San Diego Unified students in kindergarten through 12th grade, invited participants to submit either a poster or a video. The entries were grouped in six categories: PSA Elementary (K-5), PSA Middle (6-8), PSA High School (9-12), Poster Elementary (K-5), Poster Middle (6-8) and Poster High School (9-12).<\/p>\n
Entries were judged on creativity, content, quality, impact and how well they highlighted at least two risks (physical, emotional, social or psychological) associated with substance abuse.<\/p>\n
Debbie Balmat\u2019s fourth-grade class at La Jolla Elementary School had the second-place finishers in the PSA Elementary and Poster Elementary categories.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was excited to enter the contest because I know a lot of adults try to teach kids about these things, but I wanted to do this from a kid\u2019s perspective,\u201d said Skyla Shapiro, 10, whose video took second prize. \u201cSmoking, drinking and drugs can lead to problems at home and in school and get in the way of the things kids like to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Skyla focused her PSA on resisting peer pressure in order to avoid using substances in the first place.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told the story about a girl on a soccer team being pressured by older kids,\u201d she said. \u201cI want kids to know about this so they can trust themselves and have tools to respond to negative peer pressure. [The girl] was offered drugs and she resisted it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Skyla also highlighted some of those tools: Take a breath, pause, clear your mind and call a trusted adult.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo many people will experience peer pressure, so it\u2019s important to know you are not alone and that true friends never pressure,\u201d she said. \u201cYou might think someone is your friend, but if they pressure you to do something you don\u2019t want to do, they aren\u2019t a true friend.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her video features quizzes for viewers about what the girl could or should do in the face of peer pressure.<\/p>\n
Skyla said she is \u201ccompletely elated\u201d about her award.<\/p>\n
Her mother, Desiree, said \u201cI was so impressed and surprised that she handled this so well. The contest was really well-run and the students had the opportunity to learn a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike Skyla, who focused on social aspects, Mia Di Caro, also 10, focused on the physical repercussions of smoking and drug use for her second-place-winning poster.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted people to know tobacco and drugs can feel good at first but the feeling tricks you and you can get addicted and by the time you realize you are there, it can be hard to stop,\u201d Mia said. \u201cI spent as much time as possible doing research on this, and I wanted people to know because I realized that it is not good for you. \u2026 I see people passing by that are smoking or something and I realized they don\u2019t look too healthy to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
For her poster, Mia included images of the brain, heart and lungs after drug or tobacco use to indicate the possible health effects, as well as text providing additional information.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to focus on how these things are not good for the body,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m really proud of it. I believe in what I did and I think it helps tell people to stay healthy and not use drugs. I think it can help people.\u201d<\/p>\n
Getting second place \u201cis just amazing,\u201d Mia said. When she found out, she \u201cjumped out of my seat\u201d because \u201cthere were so many kids that entered,\u201d she said. \u201cIt felt like a one in a million chance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her mother, Jelena, said \u201cWhen she started working on it, you could tell the project meant a lot to her. She\u2019s still so young, so for her to focus on that and want to help others \u2026 is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second-place winners received a certificate from the SDUSD board, and their works may be featured on social media and at school assemblies and community events. \u2666<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A recent San Diego Unified School District contest that tasked students with creating public service announcements about the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":802256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5134],"tags":[5229,1582,276,3548,7354,19284,3549,3550,7264,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-802255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-diego","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-la-jolla","12":"tag-la-jolla-light","13":"tag-la-jolla-light-news","14":"tag-san-diego","15":"tag-san-diego-county","16":"tag-sandiego","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116588430352225755","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=802255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/802255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/802256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=802255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=802255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=802255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}