Learn how to reach student audiences with these alcohol education activities.
One of the great challenges for educators is how to reach young drivers best and warn them about the dangers of drinking and driving. Hands-on, engaging activities and resources are often one of the most impactful and long-lasting ways to get your lessons across to your students.
In this article, we’ll outline some effective alcohol awareness activities for high school students you can incorporate in your alcohol education programming, plus advice from a current program leader on how to use them to your advantage:
- Fatal Vision® Alcohol Goggles
- Driving Simulators
- Plan My Ride Online Activity
- intoxiclock® Pro Software
- Danger In Every Step (DIES) Alcohol Impairment Activity Mats
- Social Media
Read on to learn more about these alcohol awareness activities for high school students and how to utilize them in your program!
Fatal Vision® Alcohol Goggles
The Fatal Vision® Alcohol Goggles & Program Kit simulates what it’s like to be under the influence of alcohol and how difficult it can be to complete even the simplest, most mundane tasks when our vision, reaction times, balance, and judgment are impaired.
Nathan Wray, the Prevention Coordinator for the Roane County Anti-Drug Coalition (RCADC) in Tennessee, conducts an activity where students in his program wear the goggles while attempting to drive a cart through a series of traffic cones.
“[The students’] first initial response is ‘this is going to be easy,’ but once they start to run over a few cones, when they get done, they will mention that was much harder than they thought it was going to be. There’s a humble response — it’s pretty interesting to see the difference,” says Wray.
The goggles go a long way in terms of showing students just how difficult — and more importantly, how dangerous — impaired driving can be. Another activity Wray conducts involves students shooting a basketball without and then with the alcohol goggles on, and this too can be a very humbling experience. After trying to shoot a basket with the goggles on, one student in Wray’s program commented that the activity made him think twice about drinking and driving, and being a passenger in a vehicle where the driver has consumed alcohol.
The Fatal Vision® goggles are more than just an engaging teaching tool — they’re a catalyst for a serious and meaningful dialogue about the dangers of driving under the influence of alcohol.
Driving Simulators
In addition to the goggles, Fatal Vision also offers driving simulators that can be used in tandem with the goggles. The Simulated Impaired Driving Experience (SIDNE) is a custom-built electric kart that allows drivers and passengers to experience what can happen when they operate a vehicle under the influence of alcohol. Similarly, the Fatal Vision Roadster Pedal Kart is a durable, commercial-grade pedal kart ideal for your impaired driving demonstrations, classes, training courses, and community events.
Plan My Ride Online Activity
The Plan My Ride kit combines an online, self-paced skill-building program and immersive video scenarios with hands-on extension activities to help ensure participants receive the critical information and understanding they need to keep themselves and their passengers safe while driving.
We often hear from student participants about the value of the Plan My Ride program and the strategies it provides to help avoid any sort of impaired or distracted driving.
intoxiclock® Pro Software
The intoxiclock® Pro software demonstrates how a person’s weight, gender, drink of choice, and drinking rate affects their Blood Alcohol Content (BAC). For those who are more visual learners, the intoxiclock® Pro kit includes a number of colorful and engaging charts illustrating the often surprising alcohol content in popular beverages.
When students learn how their bodies are impacted by alcohol, they’ll better understand the true dangers of underage drinking, impaired driving, and alcohol poisoning.
Danger In Every Step (DIES) Alcohol Impairment Activity Mats
The DIES Alcohol Activity Mats depict several common obstacles and situations that can become hazards for a person under the influence of alcohol. Can you imagine the dangers associated with being drunk on a balcony? How about trying to navigate a winding sidewalk? Or descending a flight of stairs?
When used with our Fatal Vision® Alcohol Goggles, the DIES alcohol awareness activities for high school students help illustrate the consequences of alcohol impairment in a safe, controlled environment.
Social Media
Young people tend to live on their phones, so perhaps the best way to reach them is in their own language: social media. Wray has had great success engaging students on TikTok and raising awareness about RCADC’s mission.
“Everyone loves the videos with the goggles. We’re a very small community — there’s four of us in our office, and typically whenever one of us goes somewhere, we’re used to hearing ‘When’s the next Fatal Vision goggle video coming out?’ We use the video to share statistics about impaired driving and talk about the consequences of underage drinking. We want to make sure that people understand yes, the videos can be goofy, but at the end of the day, there’s a real issue there that needs a solution,” he says.
Wray also emphasized the importance of consistent posting on social media and engaging with other organizations and coalitions doing similar work – such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD), and local law enforcement.
To learn more about Fatal Vision’s educational products and how you can use them in your school’s prevention and awareness programs, visit our online store or contact our team today.
