Vaping And Smoking And It's Effect On Students In Schools by

Health Priority Area

s8140423 — 2025-04-28 09:44:18 UTC

Smoking and Vaping comes under the category of tobacco, alcohol and other drug use. This is because every smoking device contains the addictive substances of tobacco and nicotine making it an extremely addictive habit.

Vaping And Smoking

s8140423 — 2025-04-28 10:12:30 UTC

Vaping and Smoking refers to the inhalation of nicotine and tobacco through the smoking of a cigarette, cigar, pipe, shisha and more commonly an electronic vape. Vapes are a battery operated device which typically contain flavouring and nicotine in a cartridge. They are accessible and avaliable for many people in Australia although illegal.

Vaping And Smoking In Schools

s8140423 — 2025-04-28 10:26:12 UTC

Even though smoking has been around for many years, the introduction of the e - cigarette (vape) has seen smoking become a major issue as of late as vapes are extremely accessible to buy and easy to use. They are inticing to teens due to their large range of flavourings. Vapes are able to be purchased in many flavours such as mixed berry and blackberry ice making them more pleasurable to smoke as a pose to smoking a cigarette. They are marketed to teens by making them visually appealing by selling them in bright colours and covering them in cool designs. They are also cheaper than cigarettes and arguably more addictive and damaging to the human body. In schools, teens have been known to purchase the vapes and smoke them in the bathrooms. Schools have taken action against this by adding smoke and vape detectors in the bathrooms to try and put a halt to the teen vaping epidemic.

Why Was This Topic Selected?

s8140423 — 2025-04-28 10:32:30 UTC

We selected this topic as a group because each of us individually know somebody in our lives who consistently vapes and smokes showing how common of an issue it is in everyday life. We were also all in schools when vaping became popular and all had first hand experiences seeing students sell/purchase vapes for each other and smoke them at school and work with little to no introduction. Our schools from a subjective experience did not tackle vaping when it fist began from a health perspective as non of us can recollect being taught about the harms of vaping directly from school. This directly highlights how overlooked the issue was when we grew up, and therefore we want to raise awareness from a health perspective to other students about vaping to do what our schools failed to when it was most important.

My Schooling Experience With Vaping - Anastasia

s8140423 — 2025-04-28 14:14:04 UTC

I have had a very personal experience with vaping at school. In year 11 I purchased my first vape from a friend selling them at lunch time out of her locker. It was a blueberry flavoured vape. I remember thinking that I was so cool for finally purchasing a vape. There was a stigma going around school that vapes were actually 'good for you' as they were seen to be better than cigarettes therefore convincing me that what I was consuming was okay. I remember vaping all around school with no consequences. Students found and shared ways on how to smoke without getting caught by detectors, how to smoke at school camp and how to smoke even inside the classroom. I was enrolled in health and human wellbeing also and not once in any of my classes was the concept of vaping and its consequences ever spoken about. Notes were sent out to parents warning them and it was oddly mentioned once or twice in homeroom but not nearly enough to knock any sense into a students mind. Year 11 and 12 are both stressful times so vaping and smoking was often seen to ease stress hence why I decided to continue but I cannot help but wonder if my school was more on top of the selling and buying of vapes, if I would still be addicted to this day?

My Schooling Experience With Vaping-Khal

kalelhaouli — 2025-04-30 02:17:44 UTC

I do not really have an experience with vaping, I grew up with my parents telling me its unhealthy for my body. However in year 11 and 12, some of my friends started to use it and normalised it. Due to the fact that my school was a muslim school and vaping is not allowed in Islam because it opposes the principles we are taught, students were not allowed to bring it to school. Since I respect both my beliefs and the school's policies, I never felt the need to. However, many students continued to vape in the bathrooms. When the school noticed this, they decided to add smoke alarms to the bathrooms and the students would get scared to bring it.

Evidence for the significance of health focus: globally, nationally and locally.

kalelhaouli — 2025-04-30 02:18:02 UTC

2 globally Parenthetical: (SingleCare, 2023)

A conducted survey done in 2022 found that over 2.5 million youths have used an E cigarette.
In 2021 it was recorded that there were 82 million people who vape in the world.

2 nationally: (Alcohol and Drug Foundation, 2023)

Youth use in Australia had increased from 1.8% in 2019, to 9.7% in 2022-2023.
In 2023, the use of E cigarettes was 13.5% for girls and 7.1% for boys.

2 locally: (Tobacco in Australia, 2023)

Current use of E cigarettes among young 14+ in Victoria is 7%.
9% of youth in Victoria have reported that they have vaped only once or twice.

Set two personal health and wellbeing goals for the unit

kalelhaouli — 2025-04-30 02:19:00 UTC

Karen:

Goal One: My main goal is to continue to learn and understand the affects of vaping, giving myself a chance to vape less and focus more on my health.

Goal Two: I want to explore other ways of distracting myself and relieving any stress, in a healthy way for both my physical and mental health.

Anastasia:

Goal One: I would like to limit the amount of smoking and vaping that I do personally this unit by at least half.

Goal Two: I would like to learn about exercise and how it positively effects our mental health and wellbeing as that can be very beneficial as it is a free and easy way to ease stress.

Khaldia:

Goal One:My goal is to strengthen my mental and emotional health by doing things to reduce stress such . This will help me feel more at ease and will motivate me to do healthy activities.

Goal Two: I want to maintain my health by staying away from vapes and smokes. I also want to maintain a healthy lifestyle and remain mentally and physically strong.

Outline the approaches and resources you will use for developing your lesson plan (aim for four). You should also have lists of resources for classroom activities that would help teach this issue. Links are sufficient and can be easily added to Padlet.

kalelhaouli — 2025-04-30 02:19:56 UTC

Activity One: Lung Power Activity:

Students will be asked to breathe through straws to get a real life understanding of how tight the lungs can get after using a vape or cigarette for an extended period of time
They will be asked to breathe through two straws and then one straw and then eventually their own mouths to see the difference in lung capacity before and after vaping
This shows students the negative effect that longterm vaping and smoking has on the human bodies lungs
They will be asked to write a word to describe how they felt during the breathing experiment (e.g. scared)
This will help us and themselves to reflect on the effects of vaping

Resources:

Straws
Pencil/Pen
Paper

Activity Two: Kahoot

We could prepare a kahoot with questions and statistics about smoking and vaping
interactive and challenging which can encourage all students to get involved

Resources

Laptop/Phone

Activity Three: Creating Posters

Students in groups can be asked to create anti vape campaigns and posters and the most creative can win a prize
These can even be placed around the schools and allow for artistic expression

Resources

Paper
Pens
Pencils
Sticky Tape
Glue sticks
Scissors

Activity Four: Breathing Exercises

We can run a guided meditation for students to do when experiencing cravings for their vape
It can stop students for opting for a vape straight away
Breathing and meditation will regulate nervous system

Resources:

Mindful / Calming music
Laptop

Activity Five: Stimulating Vape Damage

With the use of cotton balls and a pump it can stimulate the tar build up in lungs from vaping
It will show students how badly their lungs are affected when they vape

Resources

Cotton ball
Pump

Activity Six: Matching chemicals found in vapes to chemicals found in everyday life and poisons

Images of poisons can be shown and students will need to match up which ones are found in vapes and which ones are found elsewhere
Can show people how dangerous sucking in erosive chemicals are when vaping

Resources:

Laptops or mobile devices

Consider some strategies to for effective team work

kalelhaouli — 2025-04-30 02:20:35 UTC

Communication: it is very important that all team members keep each other informed about ideas and changes that they may want to make so all members are on the same page
Collaboration: all team members will help each other by adding onto each others ideas and points with their own information to make them stronger
Time Management: We all had to use our time wisely and delegate tasks to each person so that we all had time to complete each task

My Schooling Experience With Vaping-Karen

kalelhaouli — 2025-04-30 02:21:25 UTC

When I was 16, I was surrounded by students and friends who were constantly vaping, whether it was out in public or in the school bathrooms. Despite growing up in a household of non-smokers and being taught from a young age to never smoke or vape, I was young and desperate to fit in and began vaping too. It started by borrowing my friends' vapes during lunch, to buying them off classmates and vaping in the school bathrooms. By the time I was in year 12, I realised the mistake I made to start vaping. A lot of my friends quit vaping while my addiction was only getting worse. Our school noticed the high number of students who were vaping and implemented smoke detectors in the bathrooms and at one point hosted a meeting on the topic of vaping, however, it felt that there was no support and advice on quitting. Now at age 20 and still addicted, I wish that the school did more to teach me and my classmates the harm and effects it has on both our physical and mental health and wellbeing.

Year level

kalelhaouli — 2025-04-30 03:37:14 UTC

Even though smoking and vaping is becoming more prevelant throughout all years of schooling (primary and secondary) we are aiming our campaign to students in years 7-12. This is because the students are most likely to start vaping when it's accessible to them at school with money and resources and older children are more likely to have access to money to purchase these devices or know people from other year levels to get these devices from them.

Relation Back To SDG

s8140423 — 2025-04-30 03:46:01 UTC

Smoking and Vaping relates directly to SDG 3. Sustainable Development Goal 3 is to 'Ensure healthy lives and promote well being for all at all ages.' If schools are not raising awareness about the health issues that smoking and vaping can cause then they are not contributing to reaching the third SDG goal and numbers will continue to rise prying away from the achievement of the goal.

References

s8140423 — 2025-04-30 13:38:09 UTC

SingleCare. (2023, June 22). Vaping statistics. https://www.singlecare.com/blog/news/vaping-statistics/

Alcohol and Drug Foundation. (2023). Vaping in Australia.

https://adf.org.au/talking-about-drugs/vaping/vaping-youth/vaping-australia/

Tobacco in Australia. (2025, March). Prevalence of e-cigarette use.

https://www.tobaccoinaustralia.org.au/chapter-18-e-cigarettes/18-3-prevalence-of-e-cigarette-use

Lung Foundation Australia. (2024). E-cigarettes and vaping. Lung Foundation Australia.

https://lungfoundation.com.au/lung-health/protecting-your-lungs/e-cigarettes-and-vaping/

Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care. (2024, October 1). Young people and vaping.

https://www.health.gov.au/topics/smoking-vaping-and-tobacco/audiences/young-people-vaping

How An E Cigarette Works

s8140423 — 2025-05-02 02:52:06 UTC

File:General structure of ENDS.jpg. (2023, August 5). Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved 02:51, May 2, 2025 from https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:General_structure_of_ENDS.jpg&oldid=790270129.

Vape Packaging and Flavours

s8140423 — 2025-05-02 02:55:22 UTC

https://www.google.com/search?q=vaping+flavoursa&sca_esv=6478dd876990c732&udm=2&biw=1382&bih=605&tbs=sur%3Acl&sxsrf=AHTn8zqJV75nnBvMxmSsrlLOgEJFY4C8Pw%3A1746154348318&ei=bDMUaLeIE82k2roPxKri-Ag&ved=0ahUKEwi37p3t44ONAxVNklYBHUSVGI8Q4dUDCBE&uact=5&oq=vaping+flavoursa&gs_lp=EgNpbWciEHZhcGluZyBmbGF2b3Vyc2EyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBBAAGB4yBBAAGB4yBBAAGB4yBBAAGB4yBBAAGB4yBBAAGB4yBBAAGB5I3hJQkgJYoBJwAXgAkAEAmAGIAqABhA6qAQUwLjEuN7gBA8gBAPgBAZgCCaAC0A7CAgYQABgHGB7CAgcQIxgnGMkCwgILEAAYgAQYsQMYgwHCAggQABiABBixA8ICDhAAGIAEGLEDGIMBGIoFmAMAiAYBkgcFMS4wLjigB90psgcDMi04uAfIDg&sclient=img#vhid=sPJ1W6orHPtyeM&vssid=mosaic

Strategies To Prevent Teen Vaping And Smoking

s8140423 — 2025-05-02 03:14:23 UTC

Raise awareness: ensure that all classes in schools are not just negatively speaking about vaping but highlighting the health effects as this can be more effective than a teacher just telling people to not vape. Some students want to do what teachers tell them not to.
Get a guest speaker: A speaker that has been negatively affected by vaping can come and speak to students and share their experience to show real life issues that happen everyday
Monitoring of the school yard: This can be difficult but imposing consequences for students selling vapes in the school yard