KY3.com recently reported on The Foundation for Springfield Public Schools’ initiative to foster emergency preparedness in young children. The foundation is supplying several elementary schools with emergency preparedness kits.
Jeen Grabeel, the SPS Foundation’s Manager of Health Services, explains:
Teaching children about emergency preparedness can also spark important conversations at home.
“We have had disaster kits that have been around in strategic areas in each of the buildings for some years now but if a disaster happened… where you’re isolated we wanted to make sure there was a pack that would be available right there where the kids are.”
The kit includes food, water, a first aid kit, whistles, safety scissors, and radios. Teachers plan to go over the kits with kids periodically throughout the school year.
When teachers first introduced the kits to children, they were excited to open the boxes and explore the various items inside. Each child is responsible for his or her own box.
There are multiple benefits to integrating emergency preparedness into a school curriculum. The first one, of course, is that children will be prepared for an emergency.
Beyond the classroom, children are likely to bring home the topic of emergency preparedness and get families thinking and communicating about worst-case-scenarios.
The kits are also a good lesson in thinking ahead, and helping children practice securing their own future. Finally, having individual kits gives each child a sense of “grown-up” responsibility that gets him or her excited to step up to the plate.
What are your thoughts on incorporating emergency preparedness into elementary school curriculums?
