Healthy Hands: Why clean hands are important! Insert Officer Rank and Name Here Insert Event Location Here Insert Date Here This presentation is targeted at early elementary school kids. It is a fun and highly engaging lesson where the students learn how proper hand washing helps protect our bodies from infectious agents and allergens. The goals of this presentation is inform the kids about the Public Health Service-Commissioned Corps and the National Prevention Strategy. These two topics tend to be a bit high level for the kids to really appreciate, so the big take away messages for the kids are to have fun while understanding that there are things they can do to help themselves and others from getting sick. The topics covered under this presentation include the following: The Commissioned Corps, the National Prevention Strategy, and infectious agents. It is best to have at least one other officer present to help with this demonstration.

What is the Public Health Service? Think of us as the Nations’ Army against disease What are our main goals? Protect Promote Advance On this slide you want to describe the Public Health Service and in particular the Commissioned Corps. What sets us apart from other government employees? Why are you in uniform? How are you similar and yet different from the other six uniformed services. Describe our mission and discuss our three main goals of Protecting, Promoting, and Advancing the Health and Safety of the United States. Remind them that your mission applies directly to the students as they are part of the United States. Additionally, tell the class or group exactly what your job is and how it fits into the mission of the USPHS.

National Prevention Strategy What is prevention? Why is prevention important? What diseases can prevention be useful against? On this slide introduce the National Prevention Strategy (NPS). Start off by discussing prevention. Depending on the age of the group you are presenting to it may be as simple as defining the word. We typically give this lesson to early elementary age students and we will discuss items like vaccinations because they all know and understand what a needle feels like. We let them ask us questions and tell us personal stories about when they visited the doctor or got a shot. Next you will talk about the benefits of prevention. For example, you could talk about the importance of vaccinations and how they prevent you from getting sick, but importantly prevent other people from getting sick as well. Other topics can include exercising daily, eating a well balanced meal, or the dangers of smoking. This discussion will then carry over to the final bullet on the slide where you can list an array of illnesses and diseases that can be avoided through prevention (heart disease, diabetes, emphysema, and certain cancers i.e lung and skin cancer) Describe the NPS to the students, tell them that the NPS is the Surgeon Generals plan to make the United States a healthier and happier nation. Kids will likely not fully comprehend the language used by the NPS regarding the 7 priorities, so break it down for them in simple terms. Talk about the dangers of smoking, drugs, the abuse of alcohol and the importance of eating well and exercising.

What makes us sick? Viruses Bacteria This slide begins the transition from the general topic of prevention to some of the specific items that can make us sick. The idea here is to introduce things in the environment that can get on our hands and cause us harm. We ask the kids to start naming things that can make us sick. You will get an array of answers but most classes will key in on the following items: Viruses, Pollen/Allergens, and Bacteria. Show them the pictures of the virus and bacteria and talk about how small they are (so small you will need a microscope). Mention how many of these items can be found in the air, but also can live on surfaces and can get into our bodies just by touching surfaces and then touching our faces. The picture on the top right is an image of the flu virus. Ask how many kids have gotten the flu shot or the flu mist (most kids will relate to this). Talk about how the flu can be spread from person to person through our lungs and that is why we cover our mouths when we cough or sneeze.

Where do bacteria and viruses live? Anywhere they can But…they particularly like to live on your hands On this slide we go a bit further in depth about where virus and bacteria like to live. We use this image to illustrate how bacteria and viruses like to live in the little crevices in our fingers and nail beds.

Why is it important that we wash our hands? Every time we touch something we run the risk of passing germs on and potentially make other sick. This is also a major reason we always wash our fruit when we get home from the store On this slide we discuss the importance of washing out hands. And why it is not only important for keeping us from getting sick, but also to prevent other people from getting sick. Ask the kids if anyone has seen the picture on the left and ask them where they saw it. Ask them about why it would be important if someone who was preparing food should have clean hands.

How do we wash our hands properly? Wet your hands Apply soap Wash your hands together for 20-30 seconds and be sure to get your nail beds and thumbs Rinse for 10 seconds Dry your hands This slide lists the proper steps for cleaning your hands. Go over each step with the kids and demonstrate. In this demonstration we use a commercial product called GLO-Germ. It is a non toxic polymer that will glow when exposed to a black light. Coat your hands and a volunteer (Preferably another officer) with GLO-Germ and then proceed to wash your hands. Have one officer use a quick rinse and have the other officer use all the steps we just discussed, washing for the full 30 seconds. After each officer is finished have the students examine each officers hands using a black light. The officer who did a quick rinse will have significant areas that are glowing on their skin while the officer who has done a thorough job of washing their hands will have almost zero illumination on their hands. An example of a poorly washed set of hands is shown on the next slide.

Did this person do a good job washing their hands? Ask the kids about this image. What do they observe? Are these hands clean?

Demonstration Time! Germ detective challenge! Break up in to teams of two Find out where the hand prints are in the room This is a fun and optional game that can be done with the kids. This requires a little bit of set up prior to the lesson starting. Please have all the kids outside of the room. Once the kids are out of the room, coat your palms with GLO-Germ and place your hand on areas of the classroom (Blackboards, chairs, doorknobs), but do not let the kids know or see what you are doing. Place the hand and fingerprints in various areas and then wash your hands. Ask the children to come into the room and begin the powerpoint lesson. At the end of the lesson separate the kids into groups and give as many of them as possible individual black lights. Tell the kids that someone who was sick with GLOitis was in the room and may have left some germs behind. Turn off the lights in the room and ask them to find proof that the person was there by using their black lights. As they find the hand prints point out to them that the hand prints they are finding are not actually germs, but that they show how easy it is for germs to pass from one surface to another. Wrap up the lesson by checking their understanding. Ask them why they should wash their hands and why they should use soap and water? Also, ask them how long they should wash their hands for and where bacteria and viruses like to hide.