Class after class filed into the sun-lit classroom-turned-museum on a sunny day just before Halloween. The elementary-level grades of students were immediately sorted into groups and spent about 20 minutes cycling through various stations set up around the room, learning about the dangers of drugs and the impacts drugs can have on a body.
The activity was just one way the students at Pueblo Gardens K-8 School participated in Red Ribbon Week, an annual alcohol, tobacco, drug, and violence prevention campaign in the United States observed in October.
Pueblo Gardens counselor Kristina Rodriguez said she has always incorporated Red Ribbon Week lessons into her classrooms over her 26-year career at this school campus. But this year, she wanted to try something different. Hence, the Red Ribbon Week Museum was created.
“This year, due to my collaboration with [Arizona Air National Guard Drug Demand Reduction Outreach] through my work with the non-profit group LPKNC/USNC, Sgt. Sosa and I decided to try out something new with elementary students,” Kristina said. “They presented in each science class for all 6th-8th graders, last year and this year, but for elementary we came up with a different idea.”
And the new idea seemed to have been a success.
“The students appeared to really enjoy the ‘museum’ stations,” Kristina said. “They were all very engaged.”
But Pueblo Gardens wasn’t the only school in Tucson Unified to celebrate or participate in Red Ribbon Week.
Thanks to the District’s ASPIRE Substance Abuse Prevention Program, as of Oct. 31, there were 54 events, including student and parent presentations, assemblies, outreach tabling, and more.
Nearly 7,000 students and almost 500 adults participated in Red Ribbon Week events.
