Wellness was the name of the game at Niles New Tech School’s fourth annual health fair.

The health fair, put on by the school’s 10th grade class, took place from 1 to 7 p.m. Thursday, May 18 in Niles High School’s gym. Both local businesses and 10th grade students set up booths to provide information on health and well being. Though there were booths that focused on what people may traditionally view as health such as physical fitness and diet, many students focused on creating booths related to mental and social health.

“Physical health can obviously be powerful, but you need strong mental health as well,” student Tristan Schlutt said. “We really believe that, in our school at least, this is a really important topic we need to touch upon.”

Student booths ranged from push-up and pull-up competitions to a virtual-reality headset that explored mental health. One group’s booth focused on hygienic and dental health, and another’s focused on sexual health.

Students got creative with their activities and displays for social and mental health by offering stress relieving stations making stress balls or popping balloons full of confetti. Others had “get happy” stations that involved playing games and writing down positive messages.

Student Tyler Hauch participated in a booth that gave out information on drug and alcohol abuse. To demonstrate the damaging effect of drugs and alcohol on the body, the teens created an obstacle course for visitors to run through after they had been made dizzy to simulate drunkenness.

“The earlier you start teaching kids about this stuff, the better chance you have of keeping them away from drugs and alcohol when they get older,” Hauch said of the inspiration behind his booth. “It’s also important for high schoolers to know about this stuff because there is a lot of peer pressure around drinking.”

On a different end of the health spectrum, student Talon Nowicki participated in creating a booth about the importance of communicative health. In order to demonstrate the importance of communication, he had visitors team up in groups of two to complete a task. One member of the group was then blindfolded, while the other had to provide verbal directions so that  the blindfolded person could complete the task.

“Kids of our age are going to be the future,”  Nowicki said of why communication health is important for children to learn. “They need to know how to speak and how to talk to people, either in business or in everyday life.”

These more unconventional booths were not just born out of student preference, but a curriculum that teaches students about other aspects of health than the physical, teacher and marketing facilitator for the health fair Bill Prenkert said.

“In our health wealth class, we teach [students] all three aspects to health, not just physical, but social and mental,” Prenkert said. “It all makes you a good, rounded person. Without a good grasp of our mental capabilities and how we feel about ourselves, that affects your physical health and how you interact with others. When you can strengthen all three, you become a much stronger person.”

There were many people to admire the students’ work as the health fair had a good turnout, Prenkert said. Most of the health fair’s visitors were young children, but many adults attended the event as well.

“Each year we have a large turnout of students,” Prenkert said. “Our hope is that we build up that afternoon traffic of adults to really help our business partners and have them feel that this was beneficial to them.”

The event concluded the next day with a “Run with the Mayor” event Friday. Proceeds from the run will benefit Relay for Life.