Fighting Germs: There Can Only Be (N)one

We had three problems and three ideas for solving them. However, we wanted to pick just one to work on as a class in the time we had left. The Heroes wanted to prevent the spread of germs by making posters to inform people about the importance of washing their hands after using the bathroom and before eating. They also wanted to make hand-washing stations to place outside their classrooms, lunchroom and bathroom. The Strong Kids wanted to start a campaign to educate people on the problems caused by littering and why they should always put their trash in a trash-can.

The Star Kids wanted to create a traffic light that had audio warnings in addition to light signals to alert drivers that pedestrians were crossing the road. In addition, they wanted to create a retractable waist-high barrier that would span the width of the road so motorcycle and bicycle riders who sometimes neglect traffic signals would be compelled to stop. Finally, they wanted to install rumble strips/speed bumps near pedestrian crossings so distracted drivers would be alerted. Their goal was to stop cars from running over kids. Three of my kids had been in close encounters themselves. Others had even been admitted in a hospital after being run over.

We asked the three teams which problem they wanted to focus on and they chose “Fighting the Spread of Germs”, the Heroes’ problem. We decided on their two-fold approach: information posters to remind kids to wash their hands, and hand-wash stations in locations they chose.