Students taught about dangers of alcohol through TryPOD program

Parkway North juniors and seniors are teaching sophomore students about the dangers of binge drinking through the TryPOD program, which stands for try putting off alcohol.

“The goal of TryPOD is to teach students in health classes about the dangers of binge drinking on the teenage brain.  By teaching the program, we hope that it will encourage young people to put off drinking while their brains are in such a strong period of growth and development,” said health and physical education teacher Jodi Chambers.

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, about 10.4 million teens have had at least one drink of alcohol. Additionally, about 5,000 teens die each year in alcohol related casualties, and alcohol has been shown to impair communication in the brain that can cause harm in the future. The TryPOD program aims at combating these problems by informing students about the dangers of drinking as a teen.

“Professionals from NCADA [The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse] come in and train the TryPOD teachers to teach the 3 lessons that make up the program.  The trained TryPOD teachers end up teaching the 3 lessons (which takes about 1 1/2 blocks) to one health class first semester and one health class second semester,” said Chambers.

The TryPOD teachers are the juniors and seniors who apply. Upon selection, the students are trained by professionals and then go on to teach health classes. Students in this program must be committed to showing others about the dangers of alcohol as well as maintaining an alcohol-free lifestyle to serve as role models for the younger students. Since students engage with their peers through activities and lessons, a big part of the program is peer-to-peer interaction.

“I’m a big part of [The] Safe and Drug-Free program [at North], and I wanted to teach others about the dangers [of alcohol],” said junior Maddie Prost.

Along with TryPOD, Parkway North has many other programs aimed at promoting a safe lifestyle for high schoolers. Programs like Safe and Drug Free and the Senior Bas, provide fun activities for students that are free of alcohol and drugs.

Overall, the TryPOD program has been a big success.

“TryPOD has been around for sometime, but Parkway North just started using the program last year,” said Chambers. “It has been a wonderful addition to our health classes.”

By Gianna Sparks, Copy Editor