Chemistry and Drug Use Intervention

The chemistry students of HealthPath, an integrated four-year academic career program that assists high school students in pursuing a career in the health care industry, became involved in a service-learning activity to combat high school drug use. To help provide relevance and personal connections to chemistry topics, a Drug and Alcohol counselor was brought in to speak to a junior class of chemistry students about drug use and its effect on brain chemistry. Once prompted by the presentation, 20-chemistry students participated in an in-depth-study of drug abuse at Eureka High School. The students recognized the problem of drug abuse by their peers and brainstormed solutions to educate the campus of its chemical effects. The students elected to design a PowerPoint presentation to show teachers, fellow high school students and the local junior high school about campus wide drug use and the chemical effects to the brain from the most commonly abused drugs. The focus of the study was first to educate the students about the chemistry of how drug abuse affects the brain and the actions and emotions of the user. The second issue focused on the indicators of drug abuse to help teachers identify drug use in their students, as well as what action to take.