All Texas elementary schools are invited to sign up to be a Tar Wars educational partner. Help combat youth smoking by inviting health professionals into your school to speak to 4th and 5th grade students..
The benefits of being a Tar Wars school:
- It’s free to participate.
- You can encourage your students to make positive health choices.
- The Tar Wars curriculum fits easily into a normal lesson plan.
Help combat youth smoking. According to the American Lung Association:
- Each day, nearly 6,000 children under 18 years of age start smoking; of these, nearly 2,000 will become regular smokers. That is almost 800,000 annually.
- It is estimated that at least 4.5 million U.S. adolescents are cigarette smokers.
- Approximately 90 percent of smokers begin smoking before the age of 21.
- If current tobacco use patterns persist, an estimated 6.4 million children will die prematurely from a smoking-related disease.
- According to a 2001 national survey of high school students, the overall prevalence of current cigarette use was 28 percent.
- Nearly 20 percent of 12th graders, 12 percent of 10th graders and 5.5 percent of 8th graders smoke cigarettes daily.
- Adolescents who smoke regularly can have just as hard a time quitting as long-time smokers.
- Of adolescents who have smoked at least 100 cigarettes in their lifetime, most of them report that they would like to quit, but are not able to do so.
Submit your school name and representative’s contact information using the form below. If you do not designate a desired presenter, TAFP staff will attempt to find one for you. After signing up, a Texas Tar Wars representative will contact you shortly with more information. Until then, you can review the Tar Wars program guide. Presentations take place from September to March.
