Cold and flu season, along with a loaf of bread, helped an Idaho classroom learn the importance of washing dirty hands.
Teacher Dayna Robertson, 38, and behaviour specialist Jaralee Metcalf, 23, took matters into their own hands when it came to reinforcing just how gross not washing your hands can be.
They conducted a month-long experiment for a class of 17 special education students at Discovery Elementary School in Idaho Falls — and the results were shocking.
Metcalf took to her Facebook page to show off the effects, posting photos of slices of white bread sealed in Ziploc bags. One was labelled “fresh and untouched,” while others were labelled “dirty hands,” “soap and water,” “hand sanitizer” and “wiped on Chromebooks.”
The bread slices were touched and sealed on Nov. 4 and left hanging on the wall for about a month before the effects were visible.
As expected, the pieces of bread that were untouched or touched with washed hands were relatively new-looking, while the others had different variations of mould growing on them.
The bread touched with dirty hands had yellow and green mould on it, while the Chromebook piece of bread was nearly completely covered in green-blue fungus.
“As somebody who is sick and tired of being sick and tired of being sick and tired. Wash your hands,” Metcalf wrote in the post. “Remind your kids to wash their hands! And hand sanitizer is not an alternative to washing hands! At all!”
“The students all thought it was gross,” Robertson told Today. “They have really turned their handwashing around. They realized that sanitizer doesn’t cut it and they’ve got to do soap and water.”
The post has clearly had an impact on germaphobes and non-germaphobes alike, inspiring more than 60,000 shares, 9,500 likes and nearly 7,000 comments.
“Such a great teaching moment,” one Facebook user wrote. “I hope the kids educate their parents about this.”
Another person commented: “This is why I’m a psycho about washing hands,” while another wrote: “How I wish I had done this science experiment back when I was a scout leader.”
Many social media users simply responded with the vomit emoji.
The learning opportunity was borrowed from C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital’s “How Clean Are Your Hands?” experiment. Metcalf offered the links to other parents and teachers who wanted to try it out on their own.
In a fact sheet created by the Patient Safety Institute of Canada, hand hygiene is listed as the primary means of reducing the spread of antimicrobial-resistant organisms.
The B.C. Centre for Disease Control says 80 per cent of common infections are spread by hands, and washing hands at least five times a day can significantly decrease the frequency of colds, the flu and other infections.
Needless to say, hand washing is critical during cold and flu season — and all year long.
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