FOR RELEASE: Monday, March 27, 2006
Nursing Students Model Healthy Habits
Health Topics Made Fun for Children Photo Gallery
Nursing students led chants of "healthy lungs, healthy lungs" at one station while at another spot in the Mathias Elementary School gym in Rogers a student read a bedtime story about the importance of sleep. The elementary students sported casts on one finger after visiting a station that displayed an X-ray machine showing a fractured bone. They tried on bike helmets and backpacks while learning about safety.
The senior class of 67 students in the Eleanor Mann School of Nursing at the University of Arkansas spent time with more than 500 elementary students on March 16. They took the children through education stations focusing on such issues as dental health, hand washing, living a drug-free lifestyle, CPR, healthy lungs, nutrition and exercise. The students also performed health-related skits, dancing in fruit and vegetable costumes to teach basics of good nutrition. Their audience sang along with some of the funny lines. After the performance, nursing students passed out apples and oranges donated by Harps Food Stores.
Carroll Electric Cooperative presented a program on electrical safety bringing howls of laughter as the children watched a teacher's hair fly out from static electricity.
Children listened through stethoscopes to two recordings -- one of diseased lungs breathing and the other of healthy lungs. They talked about the dangers of smoking, grimacing at the stained teeth of a model nursing students showed them, and suggested healthy activities instead -- riding bicycles, playing soccer, reading. The nursing students reinforced vital messages about not playing with matches, crawling on the floor when leaving a burning room and using the "stop, drop and roll" method of putting out burning clothing. They told the children to ride their bikes on the right side when traveling on a street and to stop at intersections to look for traffic.
The children learned about the diseases brought on by obesity and not to swim when they are too tired or cold. The future nurses demonstrated hand washing and teeth brushing techniques and advised children not to chew on their pencils because of the germs present. At one station, the students taught the children how to take their pulse and then instructed them to jump up and down before taking it again, showing how the rate increased with physical activity.
The children carried plastic bags provided by the bookstore in the Union, filling them with items promoting health and safety as they moved around the gym. The classes also decorated the doors of their classrooms in advance of the nursing students' arrival. Several centered on nutritional themes such as "Lettuce Strike Up a Tune" and a representation of the food pyramid.
Students, led by Ryan McSpadden and Chris Wellhousen, organized the fair under the direction of Marianne Neighbors, professor of nursing, to learn organizational and management skills while experiencing first-hand the role of nurse as teacher. The fair encourages healthy behavior among children and makes learning about health fun. It has been held at a different local school each of the past 10 years.
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Contact:
Heidi Stambuck, director of communications
College of Education and Health Professions
(479) 575-3138, stambuck@uark.edu