Purpose
Students investigate how phones and screens shape attention, mood, and relationships by tracking habits, exploring age-appropriate sources, and practicing face-to-face communication with community partners. They test a healthy screen habit, collect journal evidence, and use peer and partner feedback to revise a multimedia story and poster. Through collaborative discussion, role-play, reflection, and media analysis, students strengthen active listening, shared decision-making, and responsible media use. At the Attention & Connection Expo, students present the changes they noticed and recommend a strategy for balancing screens with stronger in-person relationships.
Learning goals
Students will track screen habits and analyze evidence of changes in attention, mood, and social interactions. They will practice active listening, turn-taking, eye contact, respectful responses, and conflict resolution through collaborative role-plays and discussions. Students will analyze how images, audio, video, and presentation styles shape an audience’s understanding while using media tools safely, ethically, and responsibly. They will use journal evidence, community partner input, peer critique, and self-reflection to revise and present a multimedia story and poster that communicate a healthy screen habit and a strategy for stronger face-to-face relationships.
Products
Students will maintain a project journal tracking screen habits, focus, feelings, social interactions, challenges, and relationship skills, including reflections after counselor-led conversation practice. Teams will create source notes from the librarian’s media-balance session, role-play evidence, poster drafts, audio reflections, and video plans, then revise them through gallery-walk feedback. Each student will produce a short multimedia story using photos, audio, and clips to compare texting or scrolling with face-to-face conversation and recommend one screen-balance choice. Students will also create a tri-fold or digital poster presenting one tested healthy screen habit, one observed change in attention or mood, and one relationship strategy supported by journal evidence and community partner feedback for the Attention & Connection Expo.
Launch
Host an Attention & Connection Preview Party where students rotate through stations to watch brief, age-appropriate clips and examine posters showing how screen choices can affect attention, mood, and relationships. At each station, students add a quick journal entry describing one screen habit they use, one feeling change they notice, and one face-to-face strategy they want to try. In small groups, students compare how each media format shaped their reactions and practice building on one another’s ideas. Close by introducing the question, “How does the way we use phones and screens shape our attention, mood, and relationships each day?”
Exhibition
Host an Attention & Connection Expo for classmates, families, the counselor or social worker, and the librarian. Students display tri-fold or digital posters and present multimedia stories with photos, audio reflections, and video clips showing a tested screen habit, a change in attention or mood, and a face-to-face relationship strategy. Visitors explore exhibits, ask questions, and leave feedback about how clearly each media element communicates the student’s evidence and message. Close with students sharing one screen-balance choice they recommend for home or school and reflecting on audience feedback.
