Topic: Stimulants

Target group

4th‑grade students of elementary school

Core curriculum

General aim of education

The student acquires knowledge and skills about the topics discussed in the classes

Key competences

• communication in foreign languages;

• digital competence;

• learning to learn.

Criteria for success
The student will learn:

• describe what drugs are and indicate them;

• recognize the negative effects of using certain stimulants;

• refuse the use of stimulants.

Methods/techniques

• expository

  • talk.

• activating

  • discussion.

• programmed

  • with computer;

  • with e‑textbook.

• practical

  • exercices concerned.

Forms of work

• individual activity;

• activity in pairs;

• activity in groups;

• collective activity.

Teaching aids

• e‑textbook;

• notebook and crayons/felt‑tip pens;

• interactive whiteboard, tablets/computers.

Lesson plan overview

Before classes

• Students get acquainted with the content of the abstract. They prepare to work on the lesson in such a way to be able to summarize the material read in their own words and solve the tasks themselves.

Introduction

• The teacher explains the aim of the lesson and together with students determines the success criteria to be achieved.

Realization

• The teacher asks pupils to read the passage entitled „What is a stimulant?” And then they wrote down the explanation of the terms „stimulant” and „addiction”. The selected student reads definitions and gives examples of stimulants.

• Students read subsequent fragments of the abstract.

• The teacher writes down the question question on the board: „Why do people reach for drugs and what are the dangers?”. Students sit in a circle and answer each question one by one, each person being able to speak for a maximum of one minute. The time of their statements is controlled by the student appointed by the teacher. The students listen carefully to their colleagues. Then everyone participates in the summary discussion.

• Participants familiarize themselves with the content presented in the interactive illustration. Then the teacher discusses the issues with the students.

• Students assess the risk of addiction among adolescents.

Summary

• The teacher asks students to carry out the recommended interactive exercise themselves.

Homework

• Develop a lap book containing issues learned during the lesson and bring your work to the next class.

• Listen to the abstract recording at home. Pay attention to pronunciation, accent and intonation. Learn to pronounce the words learned during the lesson.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

Stimulants

Maybe you've heard the word stimulant. It does not sound scary, right? But this is not always the case. A stimulant is any substance that is not necessary for functioning of the body, but causes an influence on it, for example. Increased alertness. Stimulants include coffee and tea which are popular stimulants. But stimulants are also alcohol, cigarettes and drugs.

Some stimulants are present in our daily lives. You drink tea in the morning (maybe your parents are drinking coffee), for dessert, you eat a chocolate cake. Such stimulants are not harmful, if we use them in moderation. Other stimulants, such as carbonated beverages, are more harmful and should be avoided. There are also stimulants that are dangerous for our health and even life. The best known are alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. They cause many diseases and additionally can lead to addiction, i.e. an extremely strong need to take them. Their abuse can even lead to death.

Alcohol is a common stimulant present in vodkas, beer or wine. Its use weakens the brain: under the influence of alcohol, a person easily loses balance, has trouble concentrating, and sometimes loses control over himself and behaves very aggressively. Alcohol can cause liver and kidney disease. The common disease caused by this stimulant is alcoholism. Where a patient can not refrain from drinking alcohol. He spends all his money on it, often falls into debts. Under the influence of alcohol a person can become aggressive, dangerous to himself and the surroundings. A great danger for the surroundings are people who after drinking get behind the wheel of a car. Every year, they cause about 5,000 accidents in Poland, in which more than 600 people die on average.

Another dangerous stimulant is cigarettes. Their main ingredient is tobacco leaves – plants occurring naturally in both Americas and Australia. Tobacco can be smoked in the form of cigarettes, but also in pipes and cigars, it can also be chewed and inhaled (as a snuff). The most dangerous substance contained in it is nicotine, which has a stimulating effect but is highly poisonous. Unfortunately, it is the cause of tumor – dangerous, sometimes fatal diseases, which include lung cancer. Cigarettes are addictive like alcohol. Some smokers smoke as much as a few packs of cigarettes a day! Stopping this stimulant makes them unable to concentrate and become nervous. In addition, their habit involves significant costs. One packet of cigarettes costs around 15 zlotys. This means that a smoker who smokes one pack a day will spend 450 zlotys a month on cigarettes in a month!

Dangerous stimulants are drugs. These are highly addictive substances, some of which have a stimulating effect, others cause hallucinations. The effect of drugs on the body is much stronger than alcohol and nicotine. Some drugs can cause death when you first take it. Usually, drug addicts survive for only a few years, starting from the moment they first start using drugs. At first, they think that taking drugs is fun, but soon, when they do not take drugs for a while, they start to experience side effects: severe pain, nervousness and lack of control over the body. The most important for them is to get another hit of the drug, so they often steal, thus falling into conflict with the law. Taking drugs, they often use shared syringes. In this way, they are infected with diseases that are dangerous for health and life. For this, the substances used by them strongly poison their organisms.

The use of dangerous substances carries a lot of risks. However, many people take them because they consider their temporary relaxing or stimulating effects to be beneficial. For this reason, they can even persuade you to try them. Sometimes such people even go to force the decision to use a stimulant, threatening, for example, with breaking off friendships. Is it worth using a stimulant, if it gives only temporary pleasure, but there are plenty of problems in the future?

• Some stimulants are harmless to health.

• The most dangerous stimulants are alcohol, cigarettes and drugs.

• Stimulants cause many diseases, e.g. cancers. Drugs also strongly affect the nervous system.

• Addiction is a dangerous effect of taking drugs.