For 135 children from age 5 to 13, summer came complete with a comprehensive lesson about safety – but the lesson came with a fun twist.
The University of the Virgin Islands’ Cooperative Extension Service held its sixth annual 4-H Summer Academy Progressive Agriculture Day Friday, and from 9 a.m. to 230 p.m. UVI’s St. Croix campus was abuzz with young people flitting from demonstration to workshop, all themed to different aspects of safety.
Progressive Agriculture Safety Day is a national program, an educational event that teaches 4-H Summer Academy summer campers about various safety topics that might be of concern in the home, at school, in public places – anywhere they find themselves.
The 15 interactive stations included highway safety, basic CPR, emergency preparedness, chemical safety, hand tools and safety when working with farm animals.
There were also workshops on healthy lifestyle choices and conflict resolution.
And it wouldn’t be a kids summer event without face painting, but even that had a safety theme, as the artists adorned faces both with typical logos – sunshine and rainbows – and such safety symbols as chemical and biohazard warning labels.
At the session on hand tool safety, the middle-school aged students found themselves seated at a table littered with tools, where DeRay Wilson and DeAndre Harris of Pinnacle Services quizzed them on what the tools were and how they could be used safely. All of them recognized the hammer when Wilson held it up, but when he asked what it was for, there was a moment’s silence before one said, "You could hang a picture," and another suggested, "Like if you wanted to break a rock."
Wilson and Harris also demonstrated both the classic spirit level and the laser levels now available, various kinds of screwdrivers and pliers. The wire stripper "could" be used as a tweezers, Wilson grudgingly allowed in response to one girl’s suggestion, but that wasn’t its purpose. He then demonstrated how to use it to strip the insulation off a wire.
The crew from St. Croix Rescue used the CPR demonstration as a way to discuss how to give proper road directions so that if any of the kids should have to call 911 in an emergency they’d be able to provide responders with clear instructions for how to get to the scene in time to save a life.
The 4-H Summer Academy is a program of the UVI Cooperative Extension Service and all the participants Friday are enrolled in the UVI-CES 4-H Summer Academy.
More information can be obtained by call 340-692-4084 or 340-692-4094.
