Texas Tar Wars

Tar Wars, led in Texas by the Texas Academy of Family Physicians, is AAFP’s nationwide education program to prevent tobacco use among children. Tar Wars provides students with the tools to make positive health decisions and promote personal responsibility for their own well-being.

Physicians volunteer to present educational curriculum to fourth- and fifth-grade students in their community, and the students compete in a poster contest demonstrating their personal tobacco-free message.

Goals of the Tar Wars program are to:

• Educate and motivate students to be tobacco-free,
• Mobilize health care professionals to become proactive in their community’s health education, and
• Encourage community involvement in support of the Tar Wars program.

You can participate in Texas Tar Wars by:

• Signing up to be a presenter,
• Registering your school to be a Tar Wars partner, or
• Submitting a poster to the Texas Tar Wars Poster Contest.

Contact Juleah Williams at the Texas Academy of Family Physicians by phone at (512) 329-8666 or by e-mail at jwilliams@tafp.org to get involved with Texas Tar Wars.

About the program

The Tar Wars program, operated nationally by the American Academy of Family Physicians, was founded in response to the growing numbers of youth smokers. By educating forth- and fifth-grade students, the Tar Wars program aims to stem the rising number of new smokers. The Tar Wars Program has two components:

• Health care professionals present a one-hour interactive curriculum to fourth- and fifth-grade students.
• Students compete in their school or class poster contest, reinforcing the Tar Wars mission and allowing participating students to share their tobacco-free message. The school winner is submitted to the statewide content, and the statewide winner is submitted to the national contest.

The program focuses on the short-term, image-based consequences of tobacco use and how to think critically about tobacco advertising.

Tar Wars reaches approximately 500,000 students per year nationwide. Tar Wars also provides health care professionals, school personnel, and community members the opportunity to form coalitions that share the common goal of discouraging tobacco use among children.

For more information on the national Tar Wars program, go to www.tarwars.org.

Timeline

School presentations: October, November, and December of 2012, and January, February, and March, 2013

Deadline to submit poster to the Texas coordinator: April 5, 2013

Texas poster contest: May 2013 — First-place winner receives funding to attend the National Poster Contest

National Poster Contest in Washington, D.C.: July 2013