The SMASH Festival was a local event held at one project school. The Festival had three main aims: i) to showcase the Year 8 girls’ social media project work, ii) to share positive messages about social media in a fun way, and iii) to remind fellow students about online safety practices. The Festival took place over a staggered lunch break in a shared common area of the school. In an early session, Year 6 students participated in SMASH festivities while Year 7, 8, and 9 students attended a second round in a later lunch break.
The Planning ProcessYear 8 girls were divided into five groups of approximately 12 girls each. Five female teachers were nominated to work on the social media project with a group of girls. Each teacher guided their group through six 50 minute sessions integrated into year-level wellbeing lessons, a bi-weekly stand-alone lesson. Project work was lightly scaffolded around key design steps. For example, in the first session, teachers encourage whole group discussion about social media problems experienced by teenage girls. In the second session, the girls were encouraged to brainstorm solutions and follow their ideas with research. In the third session, planning and design ideas began to emerge. Early in the process, one group of girls brainstormed the acronym SMASH. During this collaboration, they agreed a festival approach would be a fun way to improve fellow students’ social media awareness and online safety practices. The SMASH Festival was born. To follow, each group worked on various aspects of the festivities to ensure consistency in message and variation in presentation style.
Posting Posters
What to post, what not to post activity: posters about what to post and what not to post online were pinned on panels in the middle of the oval. Participants had to group posters correctly to distinguish between okay posts and bullying behaviour. Other posters about being kind to friends were also presented. Poster display, flyers and stickers |
FestivitiesGames
Other Activities
Cup cake stand |