Eye safety for kids

One of the true pioneers and experts for providing things for children to learn online is Eric H. Chudler. Ph.D. His Website Neuroscience for Kids goes way back to 1996 and has remained innovative and consistently excellent through the formative and now more established years of the Internet.

It turns out that like anyone who knows and understands kids, Dr. Chudler has a concern for their safety, and in particular the safety of their eyes. His Eye Safety Web page is a list to go over with children provided by a top scientist and teacher. The list includes so science project tips, like: Point chemical sprays away from your face BEFORE spraying. There is a section on the body’s “built-in” devices to protect eyes, and a link to click to learn more about the blink and other reflexes.

Danger can be in little things: candle safety

The Kid Zone at the fire safety Web site Staying Alive has 15 activities that teach safety to children. There are coloring pages, word searches, mazes, and crossword puzzles that get children working with safety words and concepts. Some safety topics in the zone are very specific, like the one that sets out these rules for candle safety:

Candles need adult supervision. You should never try to light a candle without an adult there to help you.

If an adult does light a candle, they should never leave you alone in the room with the candle burning. If they do, remind them, “Hey there’s a candle burning here, remember!”

If anyone leaves matches or lighter lying around after lighting a candle, give them to a grown up right away.

Candles should always be placed in a sturdy candleholder on, a solid surface that won’t burn, and up high enough that kids and pets can’t reach them.

Candles should never be placed near a window, because the wind could blow the drapes into the flame.

Remember a candle is a small fire. If paper, books, napkins, drapes or anything that could catch fire gets near them, a bigger fire could start, and soon your house could be on fire.

If you see a candle burning, try not to walk too close to it, so that you won’t bump it and knock it over.

Ice skating safety

SafeSport, a Website from the UK, provides in-depth advice on a wide spectrum of sports. Equipment is discussed, clothing recommended, conditions analyzed, and there are 19 articles about safety measures for getting started in sports.

Safety is discussed by kind, setting and different individual sports. An example of the advice is this critically important information for anyone who ice skates on a frozen surface above water:

If possible, chose a frozen-over shallow body of water. If you do happen to fall in, the depth will be low enough for you to safely walk out.

The strength of the ice cannot be determined just by looking at it. Its strength is determined by many factors, which include: water chemistry – is it salt or fresh water; the daily climate – wind, snow, rain and temperature fluctuations; presence of water currents at stream inflows and outflows; the size and depth of the open water; distribution of weight on the ice; and signs of expansion cracks on the surface.

The Danger Zone and other school bus safety games

The Danger Zone is one of eight simple games that can help remind children of the rules to
follow to stay safe when using a bus to go to and from school. The games are part of the School Bus Safety Web, an online information center provided by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. The center’s School Bus Drivers section has a downloadable handbook and a variety to other information and resources.

Several pages of safety tips for parents include these practical suggestions for children to learn for winter safety:

Walking to the Bus Stop
Allow extra time in the morning to get to your bus on time.
Wear bright clothing so the bus can see you in the early morning and late evening.
Stand away from where the bus stops. Buses need extra room to stop when there is snow and ice.
Dress properly. Winter clothing, hats, mittens and boots will help keep you warm.

Waiting at the Bus Stop
Don’t play in the snow while waiting for the bus. Don’t throw snowballs at the bus or anyone else.
Don’t slide on the snow or ice patches in driveways or on the street. You could slide under the wheel of the bus and get hurt.
Don’t push or shove around the bus. Someone could fall down on the ice and get hurt.

Mouthguards for safety in sports

The use of a mouthguard is a major deterrent to injuries to people who play sports. Because schools are a major sponsor of sports for youngsters, being informed on athletic safety is crucial. A website called Sports Dentistry Online has a great deal of useful information. It introduces its mouthguards section with the following, that makes the importance of using the devices clear:

In Dr. Raymond Flander’s 1995 study, he reported on the high incidence of injuries in sports other than football, in both male and female sporting activities. In football where mouthguards are worn, .07% of the injuries were orofacial. In basketball where mouthguards are not routinely worn, 34% of the injuries were orofacial. Various degrees of injury, from simple contusions and lacerations to avulsions and fractured jaws are being reported.

The National Youth Sports Foundation for the Prevention of Athletic Injuries, Inc. reports several interesting statistics. Dental injuries are the most common type or orofacial injury sustained during participation in sports. Victims of total tooth avulsions who do not have teeth properly preserved or replanted may face lifetime dental costs of $10,000 – $15,000 per tooth, hours in the dentist’s chair, and the possible development of other dental problems such as periodontal disease. It is estimated by the American Dental Association that mouthguards prevent approximately 200,000 injuries each year in high school and collegiate football alone.

avulsion: a forcible separation or detachment, referring in the above to what we might call having a tooth knocked out
orofacial: of or relating to the mouth and face

Special Needs Team Safety Roadeo

The 11th National Roadeo will be held March 8, 2008 in Little Rock, Arkansas. Participants are Driver-Attendant Teams who are responsible for children in special needs buses. Simply reading though the events to be held during the Roadeo is a review for all of us of the skills and responsibilities those who work in this area have. The competition includes:

In the Roadeo, you will be judged in driving and backing a bus; loading, unloading and securing students in wheelchairs; and evacuating a special needs bus. During the skills events, teams must maintain behavioral control of special students on the bus.

Defywire is able to add dimensions of safety that are new in the 21st century to the transportation of students with disabilities and preschoolers, whose bus teams need similar skills as those for taking care of older special needs children. Defywire Mobile Guardian can make information about a child’s individual health and needs available in the mobile phone of the driver and attendant. The Defywire methods can also give Driver-Attendant Teams mobile phone connection to parents, guardians and health or other support as needed on an individual student basis.

Laser Safety videos from Harvard

There is a collection of detailed safety information on the Harvard School of Engineering & Applied Sciences, Physics Department, and Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences Safety Committee Homepage. People who are responsible for or work in school laboratories can learn many safety subjects in the topics available there.

An example of the thoroughgoing safety training is the group of 3 Laser Safety Videos on the Laser Safety page. The videos are detailed lectures by Professor Eric Mazur of the Harvard Physics Department. Dr. Mazur carefully explains a variety of dangers from laser beams, principally to human eyes. He discusses how the eye actually can look at a laser so that the focusing optics of the eye direct the beam into the eyeball and on to the retina. Lasers can also damage eyes even when they bounce into them as reflections. One his charts in the video lists these rules:

Wear safety glasses !
Post signs
Terminate all beams
Never defeat interlocks
Don’t underestimate reflections
Young generations live in an environment of dangers for which our bodies are not prepared biologically, and for which we do not have natural awareness and defenses. For anyone who will study or teach in the sciences, taking the time to watch these videos is a very good way to avoid harm in the future.

Campus Safety Task Force recommendations from Virginia Tech

A report from News 14 Carolina provides updates on the efforts to learn from last spring’s Virginia Tech shootings. A bottom line in the report: “Attorney General Cooper has one suggestion for the state legislature: ‘People with severe and dangerous mental illness shouldn’t be able to buy a gun and it’s as simple as that,’ Cooper stressed.”

The following 11 suggestions, that can improve safety for all schools, have been made by the Campus Safety Task Force appointed to study the massacre last April:

1. Campuses should establish threat assessment teams.
2. Campus administrators and mental health professionals should be provided accurate guidance about student privacy laws.
3. N.C. should prohibit those who have been involuntarily committed from purchasing guns by reporting this information to the National Instant Background Check System.
4. Campuses should adopt emergency plans that integrate into the National Incident Management System.
5. Campuses should enter into mutual aid agreements or MOUs with key partners where relevant.
6. Campuses should practice and regularly update their emergency plans.
7. Campuses should educate and train faculty, staff, and students as part of their emergency plans.
8. Campuses should adopt multiple, redundant notification systems and rigorously evaluate such systems.
9. Campuses should partner with local law enforcement and first responders to ensure interoperable communications.
10. Campuses should incorporate victim counseling services in their emergency plans and establish a system of regular briefings for victims’ families.
11. The State should establish a Center for Campus Safety to coordinate training programs, hold an annual summit, and share “best practices” information.

Via KeepSchoolSafe.org

Ready Kids: Safety Training from Homeland Security

Be Prepared in Every Situation purrs this activity-packed website for learning about safety created by the US Department of Homeland Security. The theme is built around a mountain lion family: we learn that mountain lions do not roar, they purr.

There are instructions, facts, activities, fun, games and more, all aimed at giving children the basics to stay safe in different kinds of dangers. The section for parents and teachers provides this bottom line advice:

We must have the tools and plans in place to make it on our own, at least for a period of time, no matter where we are are when disaster strikes. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security urges all Americans to: get a kit of emergency supplies; make a plan for what you will do in an emergency; and be informed about what might happen. Just like having a working smoke detector, preparing for the unexpected makes sense. Get Ready Now.

Keeping safe from nicotine

In the long term, teaching the dangers of nicotine to children is likely to save more of their lives than any other subject. The State of New York has compelling information online at their “Smokers’ Quitsite” under the subject Nicotine . . . Friend or Foe? As the page says, “nicotine is an addictive drug.” Teaching children early on the deadly danger of smoking is very literally a safety measure against addiction. The Quitsite page on nicotine is material appropriate for school lessons and home discussion with kids. Other sections of the New York State website include many facts and ideas to equip young people against the smoking habit that has shortened many lives in earlier generations.