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IntroductionInjury prevention has become a major healthcare priority. Burns, a leading cause of death in children, often occur in minority based, lower socio-economic neighbourhoods. This study sought to determine if targeted fire/burn prevention curriculum, delivered in an at-risk school system could teach and sustain prevention knowledge in elementary students.MethodsA 60-page prevention curriculum for grades 1 through 6 was presented with two 32-page, picture story books regarding scald prevention and family fire safety. A packet of alphabet childhood injury/safety cards was also included. Parent materials were provided in Spanish and Somalian. Students completed a pretest assessing fire safety and burn prevention knowledge. A post-test was administered at the completion of the grade appropriate curriculum and again at 6 months postinstruction.ResultsStudents (681) median age 8, Hispanic (98%), (1%) Caucasian and 1(%) African American & Somalian, completed pre-post and post-post tests. Students, after receiving materials and curriculum, showed significant improvement in documented knowledge from pre to post-test (p < 0.001). Post/post tests results, completed 6 months later, showed sustained learning for all grades(p < 0.001).ConclusionCulturally sensitive programs which deliver prevention information to children and parents through entertaining and repetitive story, helps to heighten health literacy and successfully deliver critical safety information to families. The books and cards, which were given to each child for home usage, were likely read repeatedly. This appears to have sustained learning and effected knowledge retention well beyond initial classroom instruction.

Human patient simulators are widely used to train health professionals and students in a clinical setting, but they also can be used to enhance physiology education in a laboratory setting. Our course incorporates the human patient simulator for experiential learning in which undergraduate university juniors and seniors are instructed to design, conduct, and present (orally and in written form) their project testing physiological adaptation to an extreme environment. This article is a student report on the physiological response to acute carbon monoxide exposure in a simulated healthy adult male and a coal miner and represents how 1) human patient simulators can be used in a nonclinical way for experiential hypothesis testing; 2) students can transition from traditional textbook learning to practical application of their knowledge; and 3) student-initiated group investigation drives critical thought. While the course instructors remain available for consultation throughout the project, the relatively unstructured framework of the assignment drives the students to create an experiment independently, troubleshoot problems, and interpret the results. The only stipulation of the project is that the students must generate an experiment that is physiologically realistic and that requires them to search out and incorporate appropriate data from primary scientific literature. In this context, the human patient simulator is a viable educational tool for teaching integrative physiology in a laboratory environment by bridging textual information with experiential investigation.

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