Fire Safety Education

Purpose

This year I organized and executed a field trip to the local fire station and completed a related lesson to help my students connect their learning in the classroom to the reality of how people fight fires. This experience taught students practical skills which may be potentially lifesaving in an emergency situation. Through this field trip, students became comfortable with emergency personnel and learned the necessary safety skills to protect themselves and their loved ones in case of a fire.

Considering young children are significantly more likely to perish in a fire than older children (U.S. Fire Administration, 2019), it is important to educate children on fire safety from a young age. A large portion of the students at my school did not attend preschool, so for many of them this was their first time discussing fire safety and visiting a fire station. Access to high-quality fire safety instruction in a fun and interactive context increases student likelihood of remembering safety practices in an actual emergency. This trip also opened doors by helping students learn about firefighting as a career that they could pursue as adults.

Preparation

There were many elements of preparation I undertook in order to help my students learn more about fire fighters and fire safety.

After deciding that I wanted our trip to focus on fire safety, I researched which fire station was closest to our campus. The Marrero Harvey Volunteer Fire Department is approximately a 6 minute walk from our campus, something our students could handle with teacher chaperones. I then visited in person and contacted the station over the phone to arrange our visit.

I spoke with Captain Lyons, who is in charge of this station, multiple times to plan our trip, and called the day of to confirm that there were no emergencies at the station that might require us to reschedule. The fire station contact information, retrieved from their website, is as follows:

Personnel: Captain Lyons
Phone number: (504) 349-5181
Address: 808 MacArthur Blvd, Harvey LA 70058
Website: http://mhfd1.com/contactUs.asp

All 96 kindergarten students from our four kindergarten classrooms were required to return this signed permission slip I created in order to leave the school campus. All students were able to return the permission slip within a two week window and attend the field trip. Because this was a walking trip, there were no fees involved, meaning there was no potential financial barrier preventing any students from accessing this experience. I also organized the support staff necessary to escort the students so that we were able to safely walk to and from the fire station.

Lesson Plans

We completed two related lessons to first prepare for, and second reflect on, our trip to the station. The first lesson combined our learning about ways to fight fires to our Social Studies concept of things changing over time. This was an arts-integrated lesson completed with a teaching artist and was part of a short unit that took place the week before our trip. This unit included drawing different styles of fire trucks, acting out a bucket brigade, and pretending to use a fire hose to help students understand changes in firefighting as well as what being a firefighter might feel like.

This also connected to our access goals when we discussed some of the important safety changes that have been made over time to fight fires more efficiently, for example the invention of fire hoses and smoke detectors. We then discussed how these inventions have benefitted people by saving lives, particularly the lives of people who live in crowded apartments that are more likely to catch on fire. Students understood that knowing about and actively using these safety resources empowered them to protect themselves in a way that people in the past were unable to.

Jan. 7 Fire Trucks Past and Present.docx

Our second lesson was a reflection after the field trip. We completed a circle conversation discussing what we had learned about fire fighters and fire safety through our lessons and on our field trip. Students then created written responses to the question "What do you know about firefighters?", a sample of which can be seen in the "Impact on Students" section below.

Field Trip

When we arrived at the fire station, the firefighters sat all of the students down and explained different aspects of fire safety to them. The following pictures highlight some examples of student learning.

This firefighter put on full fire gear, including an air tank, so that the students could see and hear what a firefighter in their full outfit looks like. This was important because it makes students more comfortable with how firefighters look and sound when fighting fires in the case of an actual emergency. Young children need to learn to trust and move towards emergency responders in these situations and this preemptive experience increased their familiarity and comfort in the case of an actual emergency.

Here, a student volunteer tested out a smoke detector. The smoke detector was turned on, and the firefighters explained to the students that when you hear this sound in your house, you should go to the emergency exit location you and your family have agreed upon. We then drew connections between this smoke detector and the fire alarm we use for fire drills at school.

Firefighters then asked all students to make sure that they had access to a working smoke detector at their house and to tell their teachers if they did not since the fire department will install working detectors for free. I also messaged parents after this excursion to make sure they were aware of this resource.

Finally, students toured the rest of the station and got to see some of the inside parts of the fire trucks. This told them more information about the lives of firefighters from a career perspective, and also connected to our previous social studies lesson about how fighting fires has changed over time.

Impact on Students

After returning from the field trip, my students had an opportunity to write about and reflect on what they had learned. Students identified how firefighters are community helpers. One student mentioned the clothes that firefighters wear, demonstrating that she remembered the firefighter we saw in full uniform and what purpose the clothes had. While talking, my students also reiterated how you should always move towards a firefighter during an emergency while staying close to the ground and away from smoke.

Conclusion

This field trip and our related learning was an important point of access for all of our kindergarten students because it highlighted real life safety procedures. A week after we completed this field trip in 2019, one of our kindergarten students experienced a fire in his apartment complex. The information that he learned on this trip may have been life saving to him in the face of a genuine emergency.

Knowing and interacting with community helpers in person can help young children feel safe, and it can also expose them to a variety of different careers. After this trip, my students proved through conversation and writing that they understand the importance of fire safety and knew how firefighters positively impact a community.

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References

U.S. Fire Administration. (2019, Aug 9). Keeping kids safe from fire. Retrieved from https://www.usfa.fema.gov/prevention/outreach/children.html.

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