Manlius — High school students in Ben Gnacik’s anatomy, physiology and epidemiology course at Fayetteville-Manlius High School are getting the chance to have a hands-on learning experience by creating a multi-level public relations campaign to inform people about vaccines and why they are important.
“There’s so much information out there about vaccines and a lot of it is misinformation,” said Gnacik. “I want the students to be able to go through the process of working with their peers to find different ways to get the importance of vaccines and the basics of how they work out there to the public.”
The class has about 20 students of all grade levels in five different groups — groups that are working on different platforms of a PR campaign, such as creating a website, writing articles that are relatable to the average person, creating a smartphone app for doctors, using social media to distribute educational information and creating downloadable children’s activity books and videos with information about vaccines and why they are important.
“We wanted to take a more artistic approach to this project and decided to create a children’s activity book. We thought it was a good idea to entertain and inform the children about what they’re going to go through at the doctor’s office and why it is important,” said Mya Eisenberg, a senior at F-M and member of the activity book group.
Sophomore Chris Butch is part of the app/social media group, and he explained that having all of the different pieces of the campaign working together is important in making it successful.
“We figured that almost everyone today has a smartphone, so we’re creating an app that doctors, or really anyone, can use to get more information about the vaccines that are important to get throughout the course of our life,” said Butch. “Everything is just a piece of the puzzle and it all connect back to one thing — vaccines.”
continued — Gnacik said the goal of setting aside this time to create such a big project is to give the students a real world, hands-on learning experience they can take with them past high school.
“I hope this is something that the students will be proud of and can use what they learned here in college and beyond,” said Gnacik.
And to get across this idea of the real world, Gnacik has brought in professionals to guide the students through this six-week process including Dr. Jaclyn Sisskind, a pediatrician at Upstate University Hospital, Amy Fiorito, a computer resource teacher at the high school and Marc Stress, owner of Stressdesign Brand Communication and adjunct professor of Communications Design at Syracuse University.
“These kids have so many great ideas, and I’m working with them to help them figure out a way to form and go off with these ideas to make a great final product,” said Stress. “I’m impressed with how I’ve seen their ideas grow since they first started.”
After the project is fully complete, Gnacik hopes to be able to reach out to local doctors and organizations who deal with healthcare to be able to provide them with these resources created by the students in hopes of setting the information straight on vaccines.
“I want the kids to be able to understand vaccines and what they do on a scientific level, but then also be able to bring it to a level for everyone to understand … It’s important they learn how to make their ideas a tangible thing,” said Gnacik.