EAST HAVEN, Conn. — Classrooms at Joseph Melillo Middle School in East Haven are filled with distractions for students: cellphones, Apple watches, tablets, and now … e-cigarettes.
"We did find that’s one of our biggest problems," said Principal Darcie Doyon of e-cigarettes.
The vaping crisis is hitting schools across the nation and educators in Connecticut are seeing it too.
"It’s very accessible to students. It’s easy to get, we do find it happens in school. There was a period of time it even happened in classrooms, it’s very easy to hide," said Doyon.
She said her staff has caught plenty of 6th, 7th, and 8th graders vaping during the school day.
"It came down to you couldn’t ignore it, when we were seeing it in restrooms in classrooms in the hallways you can't ignore it," said Doyon.
That’s why school leaders started looking for creative ways to stop it at the root of the problem.
The answer was not found in a textbook, but rather, in a headset.
Researchers at Yale University are creating a virtual reality video game called Invite Only VR to directly combat vaping.
"Your job as the player of the game is to try to navigate through difficult peer pressure situations," said Veronica Weser, associate director of XR Pediatrics Lab.
Right now, Joseph Melillo Middle School will test out the game in health class this spring. Each student will put down their pens and pencils and instead, use a virtual reality headset and two controllers.
"We know kids really enjoy playing video games so if we can package this really important information on vaping in a game and in a narrative that’s compelling and interesting to kids, they’re going to be more likely to sit through all the material and actually attend that health class," said Weser.
The players are fully immersed in a high school setting, playing a character named Mike who is a freshman, trying to get an invite to an exclusive party.
"Matthew is trying to get him to vape in health class when they’re learning about vapes," said Weser.
The player navigates through different challenges and answers to how they would handle each problem while learning about vaping statistics and the dangers.
"Depending on the answer you pick you’ll have a different story outcome," said Weser.
The goal is to target 6th-grade students, speaking their language and interests, to get them to say no to vaping before they start, or if they have started, quit altogether.
"Hopefully by mimicking that peer pressure situation and arming them with tools to refuse, they can take that and apply it to their real life," said Weser.
Students across Connecticut have tested the game in focus groups and helped with some of the character’s vocabulary to give it that authentic feel.
Researchers say so far, the response from the testing phase has been overwhelming.
"It's oftentimes kids are the most excited about it and then when parents get to experience it I think that excitement is kind of contagious," said Asher Marks, the co-director of Yale Center for Immersive Technologies in Pediatrics.
That excitement is helping to inspire other games to be created to combat other issues in schools or communities.
"We’d like to see it become a national program and we’d like to see this technology be used for other issues. I feel like we’re on the ground floor and the skies the limit," said Marks.
After the game rolls out in East Haven this spring, researchers hope to make it free and available to everyone.
School officials are hopeful by introducing new technology into their classrooms, they can directly grab the attention of their students in a more engaging way than traditional pencils and paper.
Lindsey Kane is a reporter at FOX61 News. She can be reached at Lkane@fox61.com. Follow her on Facebook, X, and Instagram.
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