Discovery Education and CVS Health: How to engage high school students in social awareness campaigns

by Brock Horning | October 2024

How do you effectively engage high school students in a topic as serious as prescription drug misuse? Textbook learning in classrooms can fall short of fully engaging students. CVS Health, a US-based health solutions company, partnered with the leading edtech company Discovery Education, to create a Choose-Your-Own-Path interactive video to tackle the challenge.

In collaboration with the animation team at Baker & Hill, they created an immersive and relatable interactive experience. Students can enter and respond to realistic scenarios from the point-of-view of the main character and discover the potential consequences of their decisions.

Andrew Iskowitz (Senior Creative Director) and Kimberly Wright (Instructional Design Manager) of Discovery Education and Clint Baker of Baker & Hill discuss the project.

US health solutions company CVS Health was looking to raise awareness among high school-age students about the dangers and safe use of prescription drugs. They brought in Discovery Education and Baker & Hill to create an educational interactive project that teachers could use to spark discussion in the classroom.

The title screen from Discovery Education’s Think It Through

How do you effectively communicate the dangers of prescription drug misuse to high school-age students? How do you engage students on a subject as serious as substance abuse and the power of making good choices?

Think It Through: A Choose-Your-Own-Path Experience was the result. The team gathered feedback from real high school students and educators and created an interactive project that takes students through realistic scenarios they might encounter during a typical school day and asks them to decide what to do at key decision points. Viewers get to see the consequences of their decisions, the impact on their body systems, and realize that one bad decision doesn’t have to lead to another.

“We don’t want to push things on students, we want them to discover and come to realizations on their own.”

When viewers know that they need to interact with something (or someone), a different part of their brain turns on. They are actively absorbing information to inform their next upcoming choice or decisions.

This curiosity-nurturing and information-gathering is what makes interactive video so impactful. Students get to explore what would happen and understand the consequences in a safe environment. They are actively working to take in information rather than let it passively wash over them.

“We are giving students the opportunity to make choices from their own perspective.”

Relevancy is key to an educational experience. If viewers can’t see themselves or their own situation within the scenario training, they won’t pay as much attention to the core message. It also helps students understand the other elements, such as peer pressure, that they may encounter to try and sway decisions. The closer you can get to the real scenario, the more likely the educational video will be remembered if students find themselves in similar situations.

Time to decide. A decision moment in Think It Through

“We had to make sure the content was aligned to national standards so that teachers would actually use the content in the classroom.”

The teams at CVS Health and Discovery Education had to consider the needs and requirements of teachers and educators. The whole exercise would be pointless if the project didn’t align with national standards and curriculums or wasn’t easy for teachers to set up and play in class. When crafting concepts for any interactive video, it’s essential to consider the audience and what will work best for the greatest number of viewers.

“In the past, we would’ve tried to code something like this but Stornaway made it so easy to do.” Interactive videos were once complex coding exercises. But no longer. Our drag-and-drop interface allows you to focus on your storytelling craft with instant playback to review and tweak as you go.

A still from Think It Through

Stornaway’s unique Story Map makes it clear and easy to follow the different paths a viewer may take. The final script for Think It Through was sixty pages long and with so many potential storylines, things can get confusing quickly. The story map design makes everything clear and straightforward for all stakeholders.

Many of the decision points and content within Think It Through were informed by educator and student feedback and evaluation of past projects. Stornaway provides detailed analytics of how viewers have moved through the project. This can be used to improve your current project or go on to make future interactive experiences even better.

Discovery Education is a leading EdTech company that aims to engage students through innovative learning opportunities that nurture curiosity. See their website here.

Baker&Hill is a talented group of illustrators, animators, and true collaborative partners. See their website here.