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.

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.

Water That Tree!

Anyone who brings a real tree into their home to decorate for the holidays should watch the video clip called Water That Tree! The webpage at the US Fire Administration where the video is posted explains:

The video clip above from the Building and Fire Research Laboratory of the National Institute of Standards and Technology illustrates what happens when fire touches a dry tree. Within three seconds of ignition, the dry Scotch pine is completely ablaze. At five seconds, the fire extends up the tree and black smoke with searing gases streaks across the ceiling. Fresh air near the floor feeds the fire. The sofa, coffee table and the carpet ignite prior to any flame contact. Within 40 seconds “flashover” occurs - that’s when an entire room erupts into flames, oxygen is depleted and dense, deadly toxic smoke engulfs the scene.

The page also says quite plainly: Well-watered trees are not a problem. Once again, a simple precaution can be a major safety factor.

Safety tips at Grandma’s house

Over the interchanges and through the airports, to Grandma’s house we go this week for Thanksgiving. Two Defywire Safety Tips movies (March 12 and December 1 on this list are reminders that Grandma’s medicines can be dangerous for children:
http://www.defywire.com/100safetytips.html

When you bring her grandchildren to visit her, child proof Grandma’s house just as you do your own. Put away poisons from the cleaning closet and check for other hazards. Ask Grandma to take her medicines out of the view of children, to avoid imitation. If Grandma visits you ask her to bring her medications in child-proof containers.

“Motorcycle School: Be Very Afraid”

The article by the above title in the New York Times is excellent background reading for anyone talking with youngsters who covet motorcycles—or who, as adults, are toying with riding the 2-wheeled power vehicles. The author bases what he writes on a course he had just taken on motorcycle riding, and in particular on the first session which focuses on “everything that can go horribly wrong.”

From a school safety point of view, teaching kids to be careful is a lot more effective when you know what you are talking about. From reading this article, I felt more competent to talk with a youngster intent on riding: “Using a course designed by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, a not-for-profit organization in Irvine, Calif., that is sponsored by several motorcycle manufacturers, Trama’s instructors emphasized the mental commitment that counterbalances the physical act of riding a motorcycle.”

A Johns Hopkins course on injury prevention

The injury prevention we focus on at Defywire is in the school environment, and for students in their broader lives as well. For those of us interested in this focused safety, these online course materials at Johns Hopkins provide perspective and general information: Confronting the Burden of Injuries: A Global Perspective. The lecture materials are provided at no cost in PDF. The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Health, which is the source of the course, is recognized as perhaps the finest school in the world for public health. Their open courseware, used by professionals and students across the world, is making a significant contribution to training public health practitioners and teachers.

The image above is taken from the first lecture, which is the Introduction. “RTI” stands for Road Traffic Injuries and IPV for Injuries from Personal Violence (abuse). Clearly, to some extent, each injury category has application to school safety. An encouraging report in the introductory lecture is that emphasis on safety is increasing. There is a lot more than you might want to review in the lectures, but you may be interested in taking a look at the perspective of the public health experts at Johns Hopkins.