4/23/2009 11:13:00 PM
Teen Maze continues 10-year tradition of helping kids find their way
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| Matt Hinshaw/The Daily Courier
(Left to right): Cheyenne Barcafai, Kaleb Crawford and Katie Wolfe, students from Mile High Middle School, play a game of Life Twister Wednesday morning inside the Teen Maze in Prescott. Life Twister teaches that some choices can put a twist in your life. |
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| Matt Hinshaw/The Daily Courier
Students from area schools wind their way through the Teen Maze Wednesday morning in Prescott.
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During its 10-year history, Teen Maze has constantly evolved, providing Prescott-area youth with information about a variety of issues.
It outgrew its original location in the Mackin Building on the Prescott Rodeo Grounds and is now located in the Grace Sparkes Activity Center.
A good example of current issues that Teen Maze presented April 22-24 is the media booth that Tri-City Prep sponsored.
Stephen Underwood and members of the TCP Student Council focused on social networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook.
"So often, students are told to stay away from those sites. We are taking a different approach - how to use the sites safely," Underwood said. "A lot of young people don't realize that colleges and business also visit those sites. They are searching for inappropriate behavior by applicants."
The media booth is also telling students about the sex angle, or "sexting."
Underwood said, "Pictures taken on cell phones and sent to other people are stored forever."
What students do not know, he said, is that taking nude or partially nude pictures of their girlfriends, boyfriends or other underage friends is child pornography and can lead to such criminal charges as creating, distributing and/or possessing child pornography.
"They don't realize the consequences," Underwood said.
The Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Program (TAPP), now North Star Youth partnership, started Teen Maze 10 years ago. About 200 young people showed up for the first Friday evening event.
Today, Teen Maze is a three-day event, with about 1,000 middle and high school students on scheduled field trips visiting the 16 booths.
Carol Lewis of the Yavapai County Community Health Services Tobacco Program has participated in Teen Maze since the first one.
"We saw Teen Maze as a new way to get our message to young people, a new way of learning about the dangers of tobacco use," Lewis said.
Prescott Mile High Middle School teacher Dawn Dodson took time off from work and volunteered at the First Teen Maze in 1999. Next, she started to bring at-risk students. Today, all the eighth-grade students at PMHMS attend Teen Maze.
"What I am seeing is that Teen Maze continues to grow and the community involvement is snowballing," Dodson said.
Students visiting Teen Maze have fun but are learning at the same time.
Dodson said the event "subtly influences the students. They are given information, things to think about and consider."
North Star Director Diane DeLong believes that Teen Maze has a positive effect on students.
"It is helping; even if we are only influencing 30 percent of the students, that is great. It is hard to measure our success. It may not show up when the student is in middle school, but it might show up when they are in high school or college," DeLong said.
Lewis said that the surveys they receive after students attend Teen Maze indicate that they are "thinking before they act."
The topics at this year's Teen Maze included body image, depression, pregnancy, substance abuse, alcohol and tobacco, safe dates, dating dangers, HIV/AIDS/STD, youth volunteerism, abstinence-relationships-parenting, media, legalities, character and bullying.
"So much of Teen Maze is interactive, not just lecturing. We are not trying to scare anyone. We are saying, 'Here are your choices, and look at the consequences before anything happens," DeLong said.
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Posted: Friday, April 24, 2009
Article comment by:
stdsgirl
April is STD awareness month. Be careful! STD cases on the rise! A friend of mine who works for the largest STD dating website told me that the new subscribers have increased 25% over 2008. Rising STD rate sparks online dating sites.
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