Welcome, Teachers and School Nurses!The nanobugs can provide an effective teaching tool for introducing elementary and middle school students to microbiology/virology. The bacteria and fungi are morphologically-correct and the information on the collectible cards is written for this age. The power color and power value were determined based on the virulence, pathogenicity, antimicrobial resistance and treatment. In the future, a set of collectible cards will be developed for health professionals, collegiate biology students, and students in the health professions. These cards will utilize more medical and scientific terminology and will have more detailed information.Be sure to check out the Infection Information Sheets on the Kids page of the website. These sheets can be utilized as content for health promotion components of the curriculum for elementary students. One school system used these sheets as the content resource for a poster contest focused on infection prevention for their health promotion week. With so many vaccines available to prevent the childhood communicable diseases that were once widespread throughout the world, children and their parents no longer know about diseases like measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, or chicken pox. Many years have passed without these infections and the parents of today’s children have no past experience with these diseases and their consequences. Consequently, the need for immunization is often trivialized. This is reason enough for children and their parents to learn about these nasty viral diseases that killed children in the past and left some with physical disabilities (polio). Sexually-transmitted infections continue to plague teens and adults around the world despite our efforts to educate and promote prevention. As you know, there is a lot of controversy related to the methods of teaching prevention of sexually- transmitted infections. It is our belief, that if prevention can occur through education, then the nanobugscan provide a method of instruction that will reduce some of the social pressure in the classroom as the students’ attention is focused on the intriguing cartoon pathogens. It is also our belief that if students are given accurate information about the microbes, the infections they cause, the consequences of these infections, and the modes of transmission, they can and will develop their own strategies for managing the risks of STI’s. Every effort has been made to preserve the scientific integrity of the nanobugs products. We hope you will consider the nanobugs as you attempt stimulate students to learn independently about practical microbiology, health promotion, and infection prevention. We believe that students should take responsibility for their own health and learn the appropriate information and skills to prevent infections. Please contact us if you have suggestions for use of the nanobugs in the classroom or if you would like to share your successes related to this unique teaching tool:
Thank you for the contribution you are already making to help children to lead a healthy lifestyle through an understanding of science, health and their own bodies.
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