Innovative and engaging training and curricula on preventing tobacco usage — especially curricula that incorporates sound media literacy pedagogy — is hard to come by. CML's program, Smoke Detectors!, provides lessons that entertain students while linking to educational standards and providing solid tobacco-related information. Teachers learn, too, and are given optional lesson plans that tie media literacy to other curricular areas, such as language arts, social studies and health.

Featuring a one-week student contest, Smoke Detectors! takes an elapsed time of about two weeks to deliver, from start to finish. Smoke Detectors! was originally designed with funding from the County of Orange (CA) Health Care Agency Tobacco Use Prevention Program (TUPP), through the Tobacco-Free Communities project (TFC). The program is an informative contest and communications campaign to teach students and teachers about:

• Product placement/smoking portrayals in movies and television programming, helping students understand how such portrays affect their perceptions.
• Analysis and counting of "incidents" of smoking portrayals in media content, which also contributes to a better understanding of media production. The technique of counting incidents was originally developed through the American Lung Association of Sacramento-Emigrant Trails.
• The 5 Key Questions of media literacy (taken from CML's MediaLit Kit"!) which serve as a focal point for the media literacy lessons, giving teachers and students a fundamental understanding of important questions that can be applied to any media.
• The design of a communications campaign about smoking prevention, conducted by students. Through the campaign, contest winners are recognized and participating students achieve a better understanding of rhetorical devices and sales techniques.
• The integration of media literacy concepts/inquiries into other curricular areas, such as health, art, science, math, language arts and social studies.

CML is prepared to offer a complete turn-key service on implementing this program, from planning, training, presenting, evaluating and customizing any needed materials.