Click on the links below to download and print copies of posters and teaching guides featured in the Heads Up series.

NEW! Stand Up Against Bullying
This health, life skills, and language arts poster/teaching guide aims to prevent student bullying as well as lower associated risks, such as substance abuse. The lesson, activities, and work sheets will help students build the skills they need to identify potentially harmful situations around them and determine steps they can take to safely intervene if they see a peer in trouble.
(First published 2017)

Respect Others. Respect Yourself.
This ELA and Life Skills poster/teaching guide helps students build healthy communication skills. The techniques covered in the tiered lesson, activities, and work sheets will serve students in all relationships, and in particular could help prevent emotional or physical abuse. Additionally, having strong communication skills will help students to navigate difficult situations, such as peer pressure or conflicts. (First published 2016)

Drugs + Your Body: It Isn’t Pretty
This poster/teaching guide includes an eye-catching poster, lesson, and dynamic worksheets designed to provide factual details and critical-thinking questions on the wide-ranging effects drugs have on the developing brain and body. These effects include harmful physical and psychological consequences that affect not only individuals, but also families, friends, and communities. (First published 2012)

• Order a Free Print Copy of the Poster/Teaching Guide

Marijuana: Download the Facts 
The teaching guide to the poster Marijuana: Download the Facts (PDF). This poster and teaching guide are designed for teachers to display and use in the classroom year-round to educate students about the risks of smoking marijuana. The teaching guide includes lesson plans and worksheets that communicate the facts of marijuana use, as well as guide students in analyzing media messages so that they can make educated decisions about drugs. (First published 2011)

• Order a Free Print Copy of the Poster in English or Spanish

Drug Facts: Shatter the Myths
The teaching guide to the poster Drug Facts: Shatter the Myths (PDF). This poster and teaching guide are designed for teachers to display and use in the classroom year-round to remind students of the importance of getting the facts when it comes to drugs and drug abuse. The teaching guide includes a lesson plan and worksheet to help students identify drug facts vs. myths, eye-opening questions and answers from NIDA’s National Drug IQ Challenge, and take-home activities in both English and Spanish. (First published 2010)

Facts on Drugs: Teen Guide to Making Smart Decisions
The teaching guide to the poster LIFE’S COMPLICATED ENOUGH: Make Smart Decisions About Drugs (PDF). This important teaching guide is a skill-building program to help students understand the importance of informed decision making. The teaching guide includes turnkey lessons and worksheets that support the idea that when young people know the facts, they have the tools to make smart choices. Find lessons and critical-thinking activities that bring students facts about the science behind teen brain development and decision making, as well as the health risks associated with drug abuse. (First published 2008)

The Teen Brain: Under Construction
The teen brain is still developing, so it is particularly vulnerable to the effects of drugs. Drugs interfere with the teen brain’s natural development, affecting not only the brain, but the entire body. Check out the poster and article to learn more about how drugs affect the brain and the body. The accompanying teaching guide includes lessons, discussion questions, and student activities about drug addiction and how drug abuse affects decision making. (First published 2004)

You Can’t Sniff Away Your Sorrows: Drug Abuse May Cause Addiction, Memory Loss, Heart Failure, Organ Damage, or Death.
Check out the Heads Up Poster Contest Grand Prize-winning artwork and poster concept by student Ania Lisa Etienne. Then use the lesson strategy, discussion questions, and student worksheet activities to help students learn more about how drugs can affect your brain and your health. (First published 2003)

Drugs and the Body—It Isn’t Pretty
Check out the poster and explore student worksheet activities to find out how drugs of abuse affect the brain and body. This poster/teaching guide includes posters in English and Spanish, student worksheet activities, answer key, and web resources. (First published 2002)

Use these activities to learn more about drugs and how they affect your brain and your body.

Click on the links below to download and print worksheets featured in the Heads Up series.

Activity Gone Bust
Just how important is it to keep your brain healthy? See for yourself. Abusing marijuana can make everyday tasks difficult. THC, the most powerful chemical in marijuana, interferes with normal functioning of the brain. This experiment simulates how basic functions can become difficult under the influence of marijuana. 

Cross Drugs Off
Use your brainpower to complete this crossword puzzle about how drug abuse can affect the brain and the body. 

Q&A—How Drug Abuse Affects the Brain and Body
Why?. . . How?. . . Have questions about how the body is affected by drugs of abuse? Check out this Q & A to learn more about how drugs can affect the brain, heart, lungs, liver, mouth, skin, bones, and kidney. 

Tragic Data: Understanding Stats
A recent survey of drug-related deaths in U.S. metropolitan areas shows that drugs spare no one. They claimed the lives of both men and women in nearly every age group. Study the data table from the survey and answer the questions that follow. 

How Common Drugs of Abuse Harm
Read the chart to learn about the effects and risks associated with the more common drugs of abuse. Then take the Pop Quiz to show what you know. 

A Prescription for Pain
Check out the graph that shows data on prescription drug abuse. Then use the graph to complete a true or false quiz. 

Club-Drug Cheat Sheet
Create your own cheat sheet with the facts about the effects of the club drugs MDMA (ecstasy), LSD, and methamphetamine.

FAQs on Cocaine
Get answers to frequently asked questions about cocaine and how it affects the brain.

Mixed-up About Heroin
Build a four-sentence paragraph with facts about heroin and the serious risks it poses to your health.

Nicotine News
Check out the graph that shows the percentage of teens who use nicotine. Then use the graph to complete a quiz.

Outsmart the Chart
Use this chart to review the facts about major drugs of abuse.

Rave Realities: The Truth About Club Drugs
Get the facts about the club drugs MDMA (ecstasy), LSD, and methamphetamine.

Steroids: All-Over Horror
Read about how steroids can mess with your brain and body. Then complete a diagram to show what you learned.

The Cocaine Course
Use this worksheet to record what you know, what you’d like to know, and what you’ve learned about cocaine.

The Word on Marijuana
Get the facts about marijuana, and then complete the fill-in-the-blank activity to show what you know.

Top 10 Things You Need to Know About Inhalants

True of False? (inhalants)
Get the facts about inhalants and how they can affect your brain and body.

What’s the Question?
Test your knowledge of cocaine, heroin, inhalants, LSD, marijuana, MDMA, and steroids with this Jeopardy-style quiz.

Your Brain At-a-Glance
Learn about parts of the brain, and how drugs change how the brain works. After reading, complete a diagram of the brain.

Cause and Effect: How Drugs Change the Brain
Drugs of abuse cause changes in the brain that affect the way the drug user thinks and feels. Check out the worksheet “Drugs Change Your Brain,” and then complete this activity by connecting each drug to the effect it has on the brain.

Drugs Change Your Brain
Drug abusers may alter their brains forever. Drugs of abuse change the way an abuser’s brain works. Some of those changes might last for minutes. But other changes may be permanent. Check out what drugs can do to the brain, and then complete the fill-in-the-blank activity.

Messed-Up Messages: Addiction and Your Brain
Check out this worksheet to learn more about how drug addiction affects the brain.

Path to a Healthy Future
The right choices keep your brain at its best. Check out the worksheet “Messed-Up Messages,” and then complete the maze by following the statements that describe how the brain functions normally without drugs.

 Remember Your Brain: A Crossword Challenge
Test your brain by completing this crossword puzzle about how the brain works and how drugs of abuse change the way the brain sends and receives messages.

Stop Toxic Effects: Make the Connections
Drug users crave drugs of abuse because of the way drugs work in the brain. But these drugs are toxic to the human body. Make the connections between inhalants, steroids, marijuana, MDMA (ecstasy), and cocaine, and how they can affect the body.

How Much Do You Know About Drug Addiction?
Take this quiz to test how much you know about drug addiction and the effects of drug abuse on the brain.

Drug Abuse Affects Decision Making
Read about an experiment that scientists created to find out more about how drug abuse affects decision making. Analyze the data and results and draw your own conclusions.

What Do You Know About Teens, Drugs, and Disease?
Use this lesson to reinforce comprehension of the student article “Teens, Drug Abuse, and AIDS: The Deadly Connection.” The teacher lesson plan includes a lesson strategy, discussion tips, and an activity that educates students about the connection between drug abuse and bloodborne illnesses, and tests their knowledge of the topic before and after they read the article.  Use with the worksheet What Do You Know About Teens, Drugs, and Disease?

Heads Up: The Rising HIV Rates Among Girls and Women
Use this lesson to reinforce comprehension of the student article “Teens, Drug Abuse, and AIDS: The Deadly Connection.” The teacher lesson plan includes a lesson strategy and activity for students to use scientific data to analyze and draw conclusions about the effects of the worldwide AIDS epidemic on women. Use with the worksheet The Rising HIV Rates Among Girls and Women.

What Do You Know About Teen Drug Trends?
Take the quiz to test your knowledge about how drug abuse is linked to AIDS, HIV (the virus that causes AIDS), and hepatitis C.

How Inhalant Abuse Damages the Brain
Use this lesson to reinforce comprehension of the student article “Abuse of Inhalants and Prescription Drugs: Real Dangers for Teens.” The teacher lesson plan includes a lesson strategy and activity for students to use scientific data to draw conclusions about the effects of inhalants on brain functioning. Use with the worksheet How Inhalant Abuse Damages the Brain.  

Obesity and Drug Addiction—What Do You Know?
Take the quiz to test your knowledge of obesity, drug addiction, and the possible connection between them.

Dangerous Cravings and the Brain
Read about an experiment using rats to find out if increasing the number of D2 receptors in rats’ brains would decrease the amount of alcohol consumed by rats that had been trained to prefer alcohol over water. Analyze the results and draw your own conclusions. 

Drugs and Your Body
Read short descriptions of what specific drug such as prescription painkillers, inhalants, methamphetamine, MDMA (ecstasy), cocaine, marijuana, nicotine, and alcohol can do to the body. Then complete the true or false activity. 

Drugs and Your Brain 
Check out this short article about how drugs such as THC and opioids can adversely affect many areas of the brain, including the cerebral cortex (distorting thinking, perception, and judgment), the cerebellum (distorting coordination and balance), the prefrontal cortex (affecting decisions and promoting risk-taking), and the brain stem (slowing breathing and heart rate). Then complete the activity.

Peer Influence
Check out this short article about how peer influence affects decision making. Then, using facts you’ve learned, write about how you might respond to certain scenarios.

The Science of Teen Decision Making
Check out this short article and complete the activity to learn more about how the brain works. 

What Do You Know About Drugs and Your Body?
Take the quiz to test what you know about drugs and the brain and the body.

Quitting drugs is challenging because addiction changes the brain. Watch the video below to find out more.

Watch these videos to find out more about the health and life effects of drug use and addiction.

Videos are organized into two chronological sections on this page:

• Narrative Videos
• Animated Infographics

 

Narrative Videos

 

 

Animated Infographics

 

More Videos from the National Institute on Drug Abuse >>

NEW! Respect Others. Respect Yourself.
Explore the many ways that people can incorporate respect and healthy communication skills into their everyday lives. (First published 2016)

Drugs + Your Body: It Isn’t Pretty
This poster provides facts on the wide-ranging effects drugs have on the developing brain and body. The consequences affect not only individuals, but also families, friends, and communities. (First published 2012)

• For Teachers: Order a Free Print Copy of the Poster/Teaching Guide

Marijuana: Download the Facts
Find out how marijuana’s effects can interfere with teens’ lives, including in school and on the road. (First published 2011)

• For Teachers: Order a Free Print Copy of the Poster in English or Spanish

Prescription Drugs
This poster illustrates the double-sided nature of prescription drugs: proper use and abuse. (First published 2011)

Drug Facts: Shatter the Myths
This poster promotes the importance of getting the facts from a trustworthy source when it comes to drugs and drug abuse. Shatter the myths and get the facts during the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s National Drug Facts Week. (First published 2010)

LIFE’S COMPLICATED ENOUGH: Make Smart Decisions About Drugs
Follow a teen’s journey through the serious short- and long-term effects of drug use, demonstrating the importance of informed decision making. (First published 2008)

The Teen Brain: Under Construction
The teen brain is still developing, so it is particularly vulnerable to the effects of drugs. Drugs interfere with the teen brain’s natural development, affecting not only the brain, but the entire body. (First published 2004)

You Can’t Sniff Away Your Sorrows: Drug Abuse May Cause Addiction, Memory Loss, Heart Failure, Organ Damage, or Death.
Check out the Heads Up Poster Contest Grand Prize-winning artwork and poster concept by student Ania Lisa Etienne to learn more about how drugs can affect your brain and your health. (First published 2003)

Drugs and Your Body: It Isn’t Pretty
This poster provides a graphic tour of how the body is affected by various drugs. A Spanish version is below. (First published 2002)

Las Drogas y el Cuerpo no son una Buena Combinación
This Spanish poster provides a graphic tour of how the body is affected by various drugs. An English version is above. (First published 2002)

One of the biggest challenges teens face is standing up to peer pressure. This article helps explain why by describing the science of how the developing teen brain reacts to both rewards and peers. We build on this understanding by highlighting teen risk taking when driving with passengers. Together, this article and lesson will help your students understand how their brains make decisions, the influence of their peers on those decisions, and what they can do to better navigate peer-pressure situations.

MATERIALS:

Lesson:
Download a PDF version of this lesson page and accompanying work sheet.

Student Article/Informational Text:
Students will gain a scientific understanding of how the developing teen brain reacts to both rewards and peers, as well as explore the real-world implications for teen risk taking when driving with passengers.

> HTML version
> PDF version
> Digital interactive version
> Leveled version (PDF) – grades 4-5 reading level

Student Work Sheet:
The work sheet gives students an opportunity to take what they learned from the article and apply it to a real-life peer-pressure situation they might face. An answer key is included in the “Additional Tools” document below.

> PDF version
> HTML version

Additional Tools (PDF):
Grade-tiered resources to support teaching the lesson and student article:

• Expanded Answer Key for Critical-Thinking Questions and Work Sheet
• Tiered Adaptations of Critical-Thinking Questions
• Academic and Domain-Specific Vocabulary Lists
• Additional Writing Prompts
• Expanded Paired-Text Reading Suggestions
• Expanded Standards Charts for Grades 6-12

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STANDARDS:

SUBJECT	COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS	NEXT GENERATION SCIENCE STANDARDS	NATIONAL SCIENCE EDUCATION STANDARDS	NATIONAL COUNCIL FOR THE SOCIAL STUDIES
Science Literacy	RI.1 Cite textual evidence	LS1.A Structure and Function	Structure and Function in Living Things	Individual Development and Identity
English Language Arts	RI.2 Central idea and details	LS1.D Information Processing	Personal and Community Health
Health/Life Skills	W.1 Write arguments

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LESSON:

CRITICAL-THINKING QUESTIONS:

1) Why do teens have a stronger emotional reaction to their peers than adults or children do? Cite examples from the article. (During adolescence, the reward center of teens’ brains has more dopamine receptors and is more likely to react strongly to the positive feelings produced by being around peers. Rejection by peers causes a bigger response in the areas of teens’ brains that govern negative emotions.)

2) What are two pieces of evidence from the article that suggest that teens make riskier decisions when they are with their friends than when they are alone? (In Steinberg’s study, the teen drivers ran more yellow lights when their friends were watching than when they were alone. Teen drivers engage in riskier behavior if other teens are in the car.)

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WRITING PROMPTS:

Instruct students to use evidence from the article in their responses to the writing prompts.

• Grades 6-8: The decision-making process in teens is strongly affected by rewards and peers. How might this impact teens in both positive and negative ways?
• Grades 9-10: Peer pressure can challenge teens to take beneficial risks, or it can drive them to make decisions they regret. How can teens prepare themselves to resist negative peer pressure yet remain open to positive influences?
• Grades 11-12: Today’s teens don’t only interact in person. How do you think peer influence through social media and texting might impact teens’ decision making, and what positive and negative consequences could result? Consider what you have learned about how the presence of teens can impact risky behavior.

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PAIRED READING:

• Grades 6-12: “6 Tactful Tips for Resisting Peer Pressure to Use Drugs and Alcohol,” teens.drugabuse.gov/blog/category/340
• Grades 6-12:“Let’s Talk: How Do You Avoid Peer Pressure?” teens.drugabuse.gov/blog/post/lets-talk-how-do-you-avoid-peer-pressure
• Grades 6-12:“Teen Brain, a Work in Progress,” teens.drugabuse.gov/blog/post/teen-brain-work-progress

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ADDITIONAL SOURCES:

• Interactive Website: “Peer Pressure,” thecoolspot.gov/pressures.aspx
• Interactive Website: “The Right to Resist,” thecoolspot.gov/right_to_resist.aspx
• Poster/Teaching Guide: “Facts On Drugs: Teen Guide to Making Smart Decisions,” headsup.scholastic.com/guide-smart-decisions

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RESOURCES AND SUPPORT:

• Teaching resources: headsup.scholastic.com/teachers and teens.drugabuse.gov

Your students may have already heard about the opioid crisis. An average of 130 people die every day from an overdose. But even if students have seen the headlines, they might not know what these drugs are—and their dangers. The student article “Opioids: What You Need to Know” and activity sheet “What Causes Addiction?” will help students understand important facts about opioids and guide them on how to be safe. Sharing these materials with your students will support them in making smart decisions and staying healthy.

When used as prescribed by a doctor, prescription stimulants safely and effectively help kids with ADHD. But misuse can be very dangerous. Share the article “What You Need to Know About Prescription Stimulants” to help students understand the very real health risks of misusing these drugs. Then assign the “Important Facts About Addiction” activity sheet, and guide students to synthesize what they have learned by creating an eye-catching infographic for other teens.