​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.

Smash Festival team in uniform

​​The Planning Process

Year 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

Poster display

Poster display

Poster display

Uniform

Uniform: Logo T-Shirts

Poster display

Flyers & stickers

​​Festivities

The Festival on the oval

Games

• Treasure Hunt: information about social media was hidden around the oval. Participants had to go on a treasure hunt to collect all correct pieces of information. Those who collected all correct pieces of information won a prize.
• Arcade Games: a series of games (e.g., Shoot the Target and Cup and Ball Throw) planned to encourage players to learn more about the impact of social media through messages shared during game play.
• ​​Count the Jelly Beans: Visitors to the stand were given informational posters about anti-bullying strategies then were offered a chance to guess how many jelly beans were in the jar.
• Obstacle Course: Participants match questions and answers about social media correctly to continue through the obstacle course. A very popular and inventive game that shared online safety effectively.​

Obstacle course

Arcade games

Other Activities

• Bullying Role Play: actors portrayed a bullying scene then asked audience questions about what should be done to resolve the problem.
• Safety Message Announcements.
• Singing (entertainment only).
• Poetry (entertainment only).
• Festival prize ceremony at the end of the event.
• ​Photo Booth and Audio-Visual Display.

Cup cake stand

Cup cake stand with safety messages on each cake