The Quit-Smoking Timeline: A Benefits Relay

In a relay, teams use a rope as a timeline to order the health benefits that come with quitting smoking or vaping, from 20 minutes to 15 years. Then they link each benefit to a physical ability and test it with an exercise.

How to play

1. Each team of five lays out a 33-foot rope with cones marking points in time: 20 minutes, 12 hours, 2 to 12 weeks, 1 to 9 months, 1 year and 5 to 15 years (3 min).
2. Relay: on each trip, students pick up a benefit card from the center (heart rate drops, carbon monoxide in the blood returns to normal, circulation and lung function improve, coughing and shortness of breath decrease...) and place it at the point the team thinks is right (6 min).
3. Check using World Health Organization information: the teacher reveals the order and each team gets one point per correctly placed card (3 min).
4. Each team picks three benefits and acts them out with an exercise, for example 1 minute of jogging for lung function or climbing stairs for shortness of breath, and discusses how smoking would affect that exercise (5 min).
5. Short discussion: why the industry targets young people with flavored vapes and what to say if someone offers you one (3 min).

Rules

• During the relay, run outside the rope and do not step on it.
• Cards are placed, not thrown, and only the team that owns them can move them.
• No one is asked whether they smoke, and no comments are made about family members who do.
• The exercises in step 4 are moderate intensity.

Variations

Adaptations

• Limited mobility: places the cards on the rope while teammates bring them.
• Visual impairment: cards use large print or are read aloud, and the rope serves as a tactile guide.
• Asthma or another breathing condition: does the lower-intensity version of the exercises and can be the team spokesperson.

Learning goals

• Learn the health benefits of not smoking or of quitting.
• Connect tobacco and vaping with loss of physical abilities.
• Develop a critical view of strategies aimed at recruiting young people.

Equipment for a class of 25

• cards: 40
• cones: 30
• ropes: 5

Teacher tip

Keep the lesson positive and avoid shocking images. If a student says they smoke, do not put them on the spot: offer to talk afterward and share local health center resources.

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