SMOKING- By Madison Lindsay- Smoking is very bad for you. It can cause very bad things to your body, such as lung cancer, mouth cancer, or throat cancer. Today, November 4th, 2009, Wednesday, Lori, the School Nurse, came in the 4th grade and told us how bad smoking is for your body. I thought it was very interesting. Others thought it was very boring. She told us that “I never want to see you smoking.” She also said, “If you smoke, your lungs get all black, and bumpy, and weird and you can’t breathe as well.” She showed us a cardboard girl with one unhealthy lung and one healthy lung. It had a pump so she pumped it and it was like the girl was breathing. The healthy lung did it fine, but the unhealthy lung took longer and it looked as if it held some of the air pumped into it inside. That’s because it did. She told more interesting facts about the lungs. She had two boxes that used to have cigarettes in it – hopefully she threw them away! She said most of the cigarettes were about $4.90. She asked, “How many of you would rather buy candy or games or something else?” Guess what? ALL OF US RAISED OUR HANDS!! After that, we moved on and talked about second-hand smoking. She told us that if we are in a room with somebody else smoking, then we can breathe it in too. It might not be as bad as the person smoking, but it still is bad for you. That is why some people smoke outside. Next, we moved on to a big box. Lori unfolded the flaps and pulled out a big jar. Inside the jar were real lungs. I thought it was gross, but still interesting. They were black, and they had stitches. Lori said it was from a real person’s body. She said the guy who owned them died a decade ago of lung cancer and he donated his body to science. She told more facts about the man’s lungs. She told us some ingredients to the cigarettes too, but not all 400! One of them was COW FARTS! I know, it’s gross! And also hydrogen peroxide, and nicotine. Nicotine is very addicting. I do not know if it is a powder or a liquid. I think all of these facts are very interesting and the information is good to know. I will never, ever in my life, smoke or do drugs. I hope a lot of other people will make this promise too. Please, never smoke.