0.6 Health education course, chapter 7 - creating healthy schools  (Page 2/2)

School-based health and nutrition services

Schools can effectively deliver some health and nutritional services provided that the services are simple, safe andfamiliar, and address problems that are prevalent and recognised as important within the community. If these criteria are met then thecommunity sees that teacher and school more positively, and teachers perceive themselves as playing important roles. For example,micronutrient deficiencies and worm infections may be effectively dealt with by infrequent (six-monthly or annual) oral treatment; changingtiming of meals or providing a snack to address short term hunger during school - an important constraint on learning; and providing spectacleswill allow some children to fully participate in class for the first time.

Student health awareness

Students Health Awareness

Conduct the following activity with your students in order to get a sense of their awareness about health:

To begin with ask students to name some of the illnesses they have had. Write these down in a list. Then discuss whether or not all ofthem are infectious diseases and eliminate those that are not. Now you have a first list for the class.

Make sure all students have a copy of that list. Ask students to go home to their parents and ask about childhood diseases theymay have had. Each student should write a list of his or her own. For information, these lists may be compared to other lists such as the diseasesmentioned in the disease index.

All the individual lists should then be combined into one single class list.

Repeat exactly the same steps for vaccinations. Student vaccination records and health certificates may be brought in toclass for comparison.

In addition to the class list, students might want to try and find out from school or city health officials which vaccines arerecommneded for children and adults in their region. (The same can be donefor diseases: school or city health officials may be able to let you know if there have been recent epidemics or warnings about a infectious specificdisease).

The class now has two lists, a vaccination list and an infectious disease list. At the top of each list, write the name of yourschool, the grade and the location of the school, starting with the country and then the city. Now post the lists on the health curriculum discussionforum so that students from other parts of the world can see your class lists.

Check to see if others have posted their lists (do this periodically as classes may keep on postiong information). Print the listsout and distribute them to the class. Students can also make comments on each others' lists.

Students should then develop a color code for all the vaccines and infectious diseases mentioned on the various lists.

Then get a map of the world (preferably a large black and white one for the class or copies for each student). Students should thencolor one or two sheets of paper with each of the colors they chose for their color codes. From the colored sheets they should cut out triangular piecesif it represents a specific vaccine and round pieces if it represents an infectious diseases.

Now the class has everything to begin the final phase of the map. Based on the information contained in the lists downloaded from thediscussion forum (location, diseases, vaccines), the class can create a basic epidemiological map by sticking the appropriate color on to the rightplace on the map.

The map could help you draw certain conclusions or it may raise some questions, such as why the vaccination list in one place isdifferent. In that case, the class can go back to the discussion forum to mention some of the observations or ask questions from other participants.