The School Health and Alcohol Harm Reduction Project (SHARP) is a 4-year, quasi-experimental, evidence-based intervention research study designed to explore the effects of a student-focused, secondary school alcohol education intervention in reducing alcohol-related harm experienced by school students. The SHARP’s primary aim is harm minimization rather than non-use or delayed use of alcohol. The SHARP intervention aims to reduce harm by enhancing students’ abilities to identify and deal with high-risk drinking situations particularly likely to be encountered by young people. The intervention involves eight lessons in the first year with five booster lessons in the subsequent year. The SHARP research will follow individual students exposed to both the alcohol and health promotion intervention over 3 successive years, taking measures in: knowledge, attitudes, patterns of use, context of use, alcohol-related harm associated with the student’s own use and alcohol-related harm associated with other people’s use of alcohol. The paper describes the evidence-based conceptual components and design of the study by providing a review of the health and drug education literature particularly related to components that have the potential of influencing behavior. Table, references