Risk Watch - Grade 5 and 6
Publisher's Description
Every time a child is injured or killed by something that could have been prevented, everyone suffers — the child, the family, classmates and friends, and the entire community. Sadly, unintentional injuries are the leading cause of death for Canadian children over the age of 1.
With proper education, children can learn to be much safer and prevent injuries. That is exactly what Risk Watch is designed to do: give children the skills and knowledge they need to recognize and avoid risks. Risk Watch is a sequential program of instruction presented in five teaching modules. Each module addresses all eight risk areas (motor vehicle safety; fire and burn prevention; choking, suffocation, and strangulation prevention; poisoning prevention; falls prevention; firearms injury prevention; bike and pedestrian safety; and water safety) and builds on lessons in prior modules, allowing for an increasing level of comprehension and complexity from preschool through Grade Eight. Each module may be used independently as well.
Designed for maximum flexibility, Risk Watch may be taught as a stand-alone unit or easily integrated into core curriculum subjects such as Language Arts, Health and Science. The correlation between Risk Watch and the Ontario Language Arts and Health curriculum is available on the www.riskwatch.org website.
Currently there are 45 school boards committed to the Risk Watch program, along with the support of fire, police and health departments; school boards and teachers; emergency and ambulance staff; poison control centers; Red Cross chapters; and other community advocates. With regional representation across the province, the program is being offered to more than 80,000 students in over 300 schools.
Coroners' juries in four inquests into Ontario deaths have made mention of the Risk Watch program in their recommendations for preventing future tragedies. They have recommended:
- That the Risk Watch program be made a mandatory part of the school curriculum for primary and secondary school students in the province (Toronto tragedy – June 2000)
- That existing programs such as the Risk Watch program be strongly considered by the local Board of Education for introduction into its school curricula as a means of teaching injury prevention (and water safety) to school-age children (James Bay tragedy – August 2000)
Duke University is completing a three-year longitudinal study looking at the effect a systematically taught safety education program has on safety knowledge levels. To date, the results of the first and second years of a three-year longitudinal study conclude that Risk Watch undoubtedly increases the safety-related knowledge of students (Evaluation Report 4, Interwest Applied Research of Portland, Oregon). In addition, there have been four documented Risk Watch "saves" in Ontario and several more in the United States since the program was implemented. (documentation on the website www.riskwatch.org).
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Note: These learning resources are recommended by Curriculum Services Canada. However, such a recommendation is of the resource only and should not be construed as a general recommendation of the developer of such a resource or the developer's business or related activities. While CSC recommends a resource on pedagogical grounds, the end user is fully responsible for its use.