The Red Level High School Peer Helpers partnered with the Red Level High School Student Council to educate other students on the hazards drunk driving and making the right choices.

The school started “Choices Challenge Week” on Monday and had events throughout the week that culminated with a live action simulated car crash on Friday.

Peer Helper and Student Council sponsor Tori Adams said that the groups have been preparing for this week since they attended the annual Peer Helper Orientation.

“When we attended this conference, our students had to break out into groups and plan one big event to hold at our school,” Adams said. “So our students decided to do the simulated car accident and kind of tie it in with smoking as well, so we called it Choices Challenge Week.”

The students started out the week with facts about vaping and smoking.

“Vaping and smoking is such a big deal in our school right now,” Adams said. “So we decided to show how many people die from nicotine-related deaths by putting 50 black balloons on the wall with a sign that said, ‘This is how many people will die from a nicotine related death during your high school lunch.’”

On Tuesday, the students learned about, ‘What is in a butt?’ where they learned all about what goes inside of a cigarette.

“The students had a table set up at break and a poster made with a healthy lung and an unhealthy lung,” Adams said. “Then they basically brought chemicals from home and we put it on the table to show everybody that that is actually what is in there.”

Wednesday was “Chalk the Walk,” where the students drew on the sidewalks of the school with chalk.

“We wrote out several drug free messages emphasizing why we choose to be drug free,” Adams said. “The kids actually enjoyed that a lot.”

On Thursday, the kids hunted Easter eggs with questions related to drugs.

“We hid about 50 Easter eggs for the students to hunt,” Adams said. “All of them had drug-related questions and so if they found one they had to answer the question and bring it back to me with the correct answer to get a piece of candy. They all loved that.”

Friday ended the week with a live action simulated car crash scene that Adams said the community really helped with.

“We wanted to have a lot of local involvement, so we got first responders to come and help educate,” Adams said. “We also got Jeff Palmer to deliver us a wrecked vehicle. Officer Bishop, the students and I all worked really hard to get this scene right. The students took on the roles and did like real gashes and we even had two body bags for students to lie in. We just wanted the children to know what exactly would happen in that situation.”

Adams said that the students wanted to make sure that the week was right before Spring Break and Prom.

“Our goal was to tie this in with it being Spring Break next week and all of the parties that will happen,” Adams said. “This time of year is really a tough time to talk sense into these kids, because everybody is so excited about warm weather and fun times. The students said that it was imperative that we have this during the week before.”