Station 5 Grown-Up Guide
Station 5: The Smoke Stacks
In Station 4, Drugopolis, your child was introduced to a wide range of medicines and drugs. Your child learned about the importance of taking the proper dosage of medicine given by a parent or a health care professional, and that substances, such as nicotine, are harmful.
Most adults have known about the dangers of smoking for years. Nonetheless, smoking is still portrayed in the media as something glamorous and sophisticated, and many young people are still starting to smoke. While the number of adult smokers in the U.S. has declined, cigarette smoking among youth remains at unacceptably high levels.
In Station 5, The Smoke Stacks, your child will focus on tobacco and nicotine, a drug found in the leaves of the tobacco plant. By simulating a controlled experiment, your child will see the unhealthy residue that tobacco leaves in a smoker's throat and lungs. Children will also learn that nicotine can lead to addiction.
Jump to:
- Background Information
- Station 5 Portal
- Building 1: Welcome Center
- Building 2: Tobacco Factory
- Building 3: Pipe Place
- Building 4: Brain Games
Background Information
Tobacco is a very potent substance that contains more than 4,000 chemicals, many of which are released during smoking. Two of these chemicals are tar and carbon monoxide, which can cause lung cancer, emphysema, bronchial diseases and heart problems. Other serious health problems linked to smoking include digestive, lip, esophagus, pancreas, and throat cancers.
Nicotine is a dangerous drug found in all tobacco products: cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco and chewing tobacco. Nicotine acts on the nervous system, increasing blood pressure, heart rate and respiration. Nicotine is very addictive, and causes people to continue smoking, even though they know it is unhealthy to do so.
Addiction is considered a disease because it occurs when drugs change the normal functioning of the brain. Scientists hypothesize that nicotine is addictive because it mimics the function of a neurotransmitter, acetylcholine, which is involved in regulating many body functions such as muscle movement, breathing, heart rate, and learning.
Nicotine also raises levels of another neurotransmitter, dopamine. Increased levels of dopamine in the brain produce strong pleasurable feelings, which is why people find it so hard to quit using tobacco products. When users do try to stop, they experience feelings of frustration, irritability, restlessness, anxiety, fatigue, headaches, and depression.
Nicotine enters the body very quickly: after smoke is inhaled, it only takes 8 seconds to reach the brain. Within 40 minutes, half of the effect of nicotine is lost, and smokers feel the need to smoke another cigarette. Therefore, many smokers light up a cigarette about every 40 minutes. These smokers almost always have measurable amounts of nicotine and carbon monoxide in their bodies.
There are 1.1 billion smokers in the world, and they smoke 6 trillion (6,000,000,000,000) cigarettes a year, according to the World Health Organization. More than 430,000 people die each year from tobacco use. Because people do have control over whether they begin to smoke, smoking is considered the most preventable cause of death in the United States.
Station 5 Portal
Building 1: Welcome Center
Key Concepts: Corty tells Juan and Lisa that being around smoke is just as bad for you as smoking is. Second-hand smoke can also cause lung cancer. It's better for kids and grown-ups to walk away from people who are smoking, if possible!
Building 2: Tobacco Factory
Key Concepts: Kids will use scientific inquiry to learn more about how smoking pollutes our bodies. In an interactive computer experiment, kids will help Juan and Lisa observe three cups of water over the course of a week. One cup has a cigarette and water, the second cup has a leaf and water in it, and the third cup contains only water.
Question to ask kids: Why do we use a third cup with only water in it if we know it won't change?
A: The cup with only water is the control in our experiment. This means we will use it to compare to the other cups so we can see how dark they become after a week.
Our experiment shows that only the cup with the cigarette and water turned brown. This is because there are more than 4,000 chemicals found in cigarettes. Some of these chemicals are lead, ammonia, methanol, arsenic, and tar!
Building 3: Pipe Place
Key Concepts: Children will learn about addiction, and how drugs like nicotine can change the way a person's brain works so that he or she doesn't feel right unless they use the drug all the time. Kids will learn that when a person tries to quit smoking he or she can be anxious, sad, or tired a lot.
Q: If smoking is so bad for you, then why do people smoke at all?
A: People continue to smoke cigarettes and cigars even though they know they are bad because the nicotine made them addicted to using the drug. The nicotine from tobacco changes the way the brain works, so the brain doesn't feel right without the drug.
Smoking or using chewing tobacco can also cause cancer of the lips, throat, and lungs. Quitting smoking is hard, but after a person quits the lungs start to heal, the senses of taste and smell get better, and blood pressure might go down.
Building 4: Brain Games
In the Extra Credit area kids can play two educational computer games: "What's In a Cigarette?" and "Smoker or Non-Smoker?" These games will help kids learn more about the dangers of smoking and how addiction changes your brain so that it feels like it needs the drug to work normally. Grown-ups can print off the super crossword puzzle and word maze for kids to do anytime. Be sure to check out the Hands-On Activity that lets kids act out their own public service announcement!
