Grade 1 students are a little more safety conscious after a half-day of safety presentations from Ag for Life and Innisfail community partners.
For the Safety Day Program, the students from École John Wilson Elementary School were led through eight safety stations in four classrooms during the morning of June 25 and were taught safety skills and behaviours.
“Our presenters range from Innisfail peace officers to TransCanada and ATCO,” said David Sprague, chief executive officer for Ag for Life, a non-profit organization dedicated to building a greater understanding and appreciation of agriculture.
“Our mandate is to deliver educational programming that will serve to improve rural and farm safety and build a genuine understanding and appreciation of the impact agriculture has on our lives. Over a typical year, we deliver 30-plus presentations like this to over 50,000 students across Alberta.”
He noted the 83 Innisfail students were fully engaged with all of the presenters in the classrooms.
“They seem to be learning from our volunteers and for the nearly last day of school, very well behaved,” said Sprague. “Our training today was very hands-on for the kids and they asked some good questions of the presenters.”
Presenter Merna Gizler taught kids about household chemicals and their dangers.
“You can't always tell a chemical by its colour,” said Gizler to the kids as she had students guess which one was Kool-Aid or antifreeze. “If you don't know what it is, don't touch it or drink it.”
UFA's Annemarie Pederson demonstrated the dangers of high sound volume levels to her groups.
“We talked about the levels of sound and showed what a 100 decibel level was, and how it can injure your hearing over the long term,” said Pedersen. “The importance of earphones and hearing protection were clearly talked about.”
Students learned from Town of Innisfail peace officer Colin Whymark about bike safety while TransCanada's Sharon Geisel talked about what lies beneath pipelines and wiring.
“When the fire department comes into your house, don't be afraid of us,” said Innisfail firefighter John Schneider as he demonstrated different nozzle types, a firefighter's axe, and breathing apparatus. “We are there to rescue you, so don't hide.”
École John Wilson teachers Charlotte Sparrow, Anna Whiteman, Tracy Carr, Carol Freschette and Heather Hanley helped organize the day in conjunction with Ag for Life.
