According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, suicide is the second leading cause of death for adolescents age 12-17 in the United States. Research from the Anxiety and Depression Association of America also shows that one in four children are affected by anxiety disorders; these youth are at higher risk to perform poorly in school, miss out on important social experiences and engage in substance abuse. Happy people are healthier, live longer, earn more money and do better in school and life.
The inability to reduce and cope with stress and anxiety can negatively impact facets of life including their health, friendships, relationships with parents, and academic performance. The Discover Your Happy program is a collaborative effort between Discovery Education and LG Electronics USA, and extension of LG’s signature cause social impact program. It provides educators, parents and students the no-cost resources to build resilience by practicing the Six Sustainable Happiness Skills: mindfulness, human connection, positive outlook, purpose, generosity, and gratitude.
The program is designed to improve student well-being and, by correlation, their performance in school and life which includes:
- Standards-aligned materials, lessons, and interactives for grades 7-12
- At-home tools for parents to continue lessons
- On-Demand Virtual Field Trip empowering students to discover the science behind happiness
All resources are also available through Discovery Education Experience, the digital service enriching and connecting student learning to the real world.
The Discover Your Happy program makes SEL a collaborative effort between teachers, students, and parents by providing tailored activities for each audience. The program is used to show students how they can find happiness for themselves at school and in life. Happiness means that students recognize and actualize several core competencies of social emotional learning, including self-awareness, responsible decision-making and social awareness. With a standards-aligned approach that provides comprehensive learning materials for the entire classroom, students and teachers are guided — but not given the answers — to find sustainable happiness by practicing skills in a structured, meaningful manner.
Each year on the United Nations’ International Day of Happiness, Discovery Education, LG Electronics USA, and partnering organizations and schools participate in a social media conversation about ways they have found their happiness. On March 20, 2019, program affiliates hosted two Twitter takeovers leading up the International Day of Happiness (IDOH). With the first blast in late February and second promotions surge in the days before IDOH, social audiences were primed with language, including the campaign keyword #DiscoverYourHappy, and resources to inform the celebration of happiness on IDOH itself.
IDOH Twitter activity featured five sessions to structure discussion around core parts of the Discover Your Happy program. In order, these sessions introduced students and teachers to the concept of happiness first before diving into why it matters and how everyone can discover their happy.
- 9:00 AM — Get Ready to Learn, an opening exercise and ice breaker from Inner Explorer
- 10:00 AM — This is Your Brain on Happiness, an exploration of the science of happiness with Greater Good Science Center and U.C. Berkeley
- 12:00 PM — The Happiness Impact, a live Q&A with students from Sachem High School East
- 2:00 PM — The Six Sustainable Happiness Skills, covering tips and strategies for practicing happiness with Project Happiness
- 5:00 PM — Discover Your Happy Every Day, the closing with resources to extend social-emotional learning
All the while, educators shared videos and pictures of their classroom happiness celebrations. Students submitted videos by joining a special Twitter chat with @LGUS and @DiscoveryEd to answer the question: “Which happiness skill are you practicing and how has it impacted your life, your classroom or your school?”
Educators serving as role models for students are also equipped with materials to conduct classroom discussions, go on ‘virtual field trips’ with students and complete independent professional development.
The program involves the entire family, too, since parents play a key role in their child’s well-being, with family-friendly activities that bring the conversation home.
The campaign was executed using a myriad of tactics driving towards the goals of spotlighting happiness as a skill that can be practiced and sharing the Six Sustainable Happiness Skills as tools students can use to achieve happiness in their lives.
Leveraging the existing partnership behind LG’s Experience Happiness initiative, Discovery Education built a program schedule for the IDOH Day of Learning that shared tips and resources from all of the program partners (Inner Explorer, Project Happiness, Greater Good Science Center at the University of California at Berkeley and Sachem East High School (students featured in the Discover Your Happy Virtual Field Trip in 2018).
Educators, students and parents were made aware of the Day of Learning through an 8-week promotional campaign that included organic social media, Discovery Education banner campaign and marketing assets, paid media and press.
Additional grassroots efforts led by the Discovery Educator Network encouraged educator participation and shared resources through Discovery Education’s DEN Community, Blogs and social media posts.
On March 20, 2019, the campaign keyword #DiscoverYourHappy had 483 posts and 45,028,576 impressions. By the end of the month, the program reached more than 130,400 students.
