Spreading the Lesson, Not Germs

“Before you eat.”

“After you go to the bathroom.”

It’s one of the first things we learn and it’s a lesson we use every single day. In fact, we practice it more than once a day and we don’t often stop to think about how we’re doing it.

“One of the best ways to not get sick is to wash your hands,” Louisville Water Community Relations Specialist Barbara Crow told a group of seventh graders at Kammerer Middle School.

Her Clean Hands Up! lessons inside Andrea Abma’s classroom came one day before Global Handwashing Day. But Crow spreads the message year-round on how to help stop spreading germs.

With Wilder Elementary just down the road from Kammerer, Abma’s plan is for her students to take what they learned from Crow and teach it to younger kids.

“For them to be able to walk over to their local grade school and mentor; maybe some of their siblings are there or cousins. They’re at an age level where they could be a mentor, looking at doing more community service, or thinking about things that would help improve their community,” Abma said.

“This is awesome. The more hands we have out there to teach this lesson, the greater the positive impact. And that means fewer sick kids which is always a good thing,” Crow exclaimed.

And her lesson is literally a hands-on experience. She shares a fun song to help little ones remember to wash all the places where germs can hide- the backs of hands, in between the fingers and thumbs, and under fingernails.

Then Crow pulls out the “germs” (glow-in-the dark lotion in this case) and tells the class to get to work. They slather it on, use a blacklight to show the green spots, wash their hands, and use the blacklight again to reveal how well they did.