Bunnell Students “Flood” Middle Schoolers with Health and Wellness Information
Thirty-two students from Bunnell High School took a wealth of knowledge and enthusiasm to Flood Middle School to share their insight on health and wellness for the body and mind. The Bunnell students are part of Melissa Signor’s Medical Careers class, as well as the Youth Health Service Corps (YHSC), run in conjunction with Southwestern Area Health Education Center. YHSC is a health careers recruitment program that engages high school students as leaders in meaningful service that addresses community health issues. After a rigorous volunteer training throughout the fall semester, the students researched various health topics and developed a learn and serve project to present at the middle school. Twelve different subject areas – including Oral Health, First Aid and Healthy Diet – were researched and became the focus of 5-minute mini presentations for Flood students.
- Angeli Pena, Bunnell, searches for “leftover germs” in a handwashing activity done with the middle school students.
On December 17th, Bunnell students displayed their work at Flood. Over 300 middle schoolers came through the health fair stations in small groups, as Bunnell students delivered an abundance of information in the form of interactive games, skits and activities. The students showed great maturity and were professionally dressed, well-spoken and extremely engaging. Flood students asked many questions, actively participated at each station, and were genuinely intrigued by all of the information presented.
- Freddy Gonzales (far right) engages in an interactive test of the middle school students’ comprehension of verbal, non-verbal and physical, sexual harassment.
This opportunity not only gave the students a chance to investigate topics of interest and creatively develop a way to convey the information and its importance to younger students, it also gave them some new insight and appreciation for teachers. Maureen DiDomenico, Coordinator of Fine Arts, Health and Physical Education for the district, stated “This experience highlighted the preparation, patience, and dedication required to impact the learning of children. This revelation, combined with the skills they garnered by researching a topic, creating visuals to depict their findings and by presenting these findings, will serve them well in the future.” The success of the event, and its mutually beneficial results, inspired the scheduling of a second display during the spring semester to give the remainder of Flood students the exciting and fruitful experience.
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