Students at the STAR Early College High School at Erasmus Hall participated in a fun-filled awareness event on Friday to mark World AIDS Day. 

The Brooklyn students were not lectured to nor encouraged to memorize facts and figures; instead, they were engaged with prizes, dancing and talking.

"HIV awareness is very important because people are dying, and it is a real thing," says Tyiera Newland, a senior at the school.

Experts say that those between the ages of 18 and 24 years old are most at risk for HIV, and the best way to combat that trend is through events like this to raise awareness.

"I think this event is fantastic,” said Alex Hajjar, an English teacher at the school. “I wish that I had had something like this when I was in high school."