You don’t need to be a drama teacher to use drama-based activities to explore healthy living concepts!
Planning Your Approach
It can be a rewarding experience to engage youth as part of your team in developing a planned approach to using drama as a method for exploring the healthy living concepts and acquiring the knowledge and skills as described in the Ontario Health and Physical Education curriculum. First, choose the class you will engage. Next, consider completing this activity with your students:
- Identify your tools and assets: Tools and assets include all of the people and materials such as resources available to you. For example, this could include students (e.g., drama students); programs such as Red Cross, White Ribbon, 4th R, and Specialist High Skills Majors (SHSMs); and partnerships with local theatre groups, school groups, other teachers and educators, social workers, family studies, a safe schools team, a health clinic, public health, and Egale Canada Human Rights Trust.
- Identify your needs: Know whether you need training, resources, internal or external support, space, and so on.
- Determine your priority health topic(s): Review the curriculum expectations to determine the expected learning for your class. Topics may include Mental Health and Emotional Well-Being, Healthy Eating, Personal Safety and Injury Prevention, Substance Use, Addictions and Related Behaviours, or Human Development and Sexual Health. Consider making connections between health concepts. Engage members of your school community, including students, in determining priority topics.
- Create your plan: Based on your priority topic, youth interest, and opportunities for assessment, create your plan. Browse the inventory of activities to get started.
- Implement the Creative Process: Work with your students to co-create success criteria to guide their exploration of health content and building living skills through drama-based learning activities. Use the co-constructed success criteria to monitor student learning through self, peer, and teacher/educator assessments. A variety of tools to support assessment and evaluation are available. Reference the Creative Process from the Using Drama in Health Education section for examples.
- Share: Consider how your students will share their learning. For example, plan a day for groups to share their drama productions with the class, with other students and/or with parents/guardians/caregivers and the community.
