A group of 17 Grand Marais students and  4 parent chaperones are in St. Paul today to learn how to change tobacco laws that protect kids from tobacco, electronic cigarettes and other nicotine delivery devices. 

The goal is to tell Cook County lawmakers at the state legislature to change the legal age of purchasing tobacco from 18 to 21.

Eight of the students, grades 5 to 7, are members of BorealCorps story scouts club who prepared a presentation board, “Beautiful Lungs: a Visual History Of One Woman’s Life and Death from Smoking.” It is told in primary source photos, an emphysema lung CT scan, and hand-felted diseased lung slices the students made and “accessorized” with tumors. It is an artistic challenge to tobacco company advertising themes that market cigarettes and electronic-cigarettes as part of a beautiful, glamorous, carefree and alluring lifestyle. BorealCorps kids, through their bejeweled, handmade diseased felted lungs aren’t buying that marketing message. 

By arguing with art and science in their presentation board, BorealCorps kids hope to persuade lawmakers they visit this afternoon to pass the Tobacco 21 law.  With lawmakers, they had 30 minutes of kid-led focused intelligent discussions about Tobacco 21, and extending state funding for smoking-cessation programs. 

Boreal Corps kids in St. Paul are: 

Grace Blomberg, MaTaya Fairbanks, Wren Ferry, Bryn Fitzgerald-Wells, Andrew Hallberg, Sammie Garrity, Livi Nesgoda, Grace Ritchey. Nine students from Cook County High are also participating, offering a video they made on the need for Tobacco 21 law passage.